28 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



CHAPTER II. 



" And here were coral bowers, 



And grots of madrepores, 

 And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye 



As e'er was mossy bed 

 Whereon the Wood-Nymphs lie 

 With languid limbs in summer's sultry hours." 



-SPONGES. 



AMONG the most unobtrusive, but by no means the 

 least interesting productions of the sea-shore, and, 

 moreover, obtainable abundantly from the rocks of 

 every beach by any one who chooses to select these 

 elegant organisms to form a living carpet for the 

 naked rock-work of the aquarium, are the SPONGES, 

 a race of beings dubiously interposed in the classifi- 

 cation of the modern naturalist between the animal 

 and the vegetable departments of creation. 



It is not known under what pressure of the ocean 

 these delicate creatures may live*, but they are found 

 equally in places covered perpetually by the sea, as in 

 those which it leaves dry at every recess of the tide. 

 They adhere to, and spread over the surface of rocks, 

 sea- weeds, marine shells, and many other objects, to 

 which they are so firmly attached, that they cannot 

 * Professor Grant, Ed. New Phil. Journ. 



