24 OPINIONS AND DISCOVERIES 



stationary or rooted animal, and seems to have some sensa- 

 tion, for they report that it is torn away with difficulty un- 

 less the attempt be made without warning ;" or, as he 

 words it in another place, (Hist. 1. 5.) " if the sponge 

 perceives a person about to pull it off, it contracts itself 

 and is difficult to be taken aAvay, and it does the same when 

 there is much wind and sea, in order that it may not be up- 

 rooted ; but there are some persons who doubt of this, as the 

 inhabitants of Torone." Its generation is spontaneous in the 

 hollows of rocks ; and, like other attached things in the sea, 

 it is nourished by the mud, of which they are found full 

 when taken up. " And in the canals or apertures of the 

 sponge are small crabs {pinnophylaces) which, by opening 

 and closing a sort of araneous net-work over the apertures, 

 do catch small fishes, — opening it for their entrance and 



Lond. 1748 Somewhat to the same purpose Hasselquist writes. 



— " Himia is a little, and almost unknown island, directly opposite 

 Rhodes : we saw it in the morning on our right hand. It is worth no- 

 tice, on account of the singular method the Greeks, inhabitants of the 

 island, have to get their living. In the bottom of the sea the common 

 spunge (Spongia offic.) is found in abundance, and more than in any 

 other place in the Mediterranean. The inhabitants make it a trade to 

 fish up this spunge, by which they get a living, far from contemptible, as 

 their goods are always wanted by the Turks who use an incredible num- 

 ber of spunges at their bathings and washings. A girl in this island is 

 not permitted by her relations to marry, before she has brought up 

 a certain quantity of spunges, and before she can give a proof of her 

 agility, by taking them up from a certain depth." Voyages and Travels 



in the Levant, p. 175. Lond. 176G. The duty on sponge, in 1829, 



produced L.3650, 16s. The duty is 2s. on all that is imported from 

 foreign countries, and 6d. on that imported from a British possession. 

 M'Culloch's Com. Dictionary, p. 989. " In commerce two kinds of 

 sponges occur : — the Turkey, which is of the finest texture, and obtain, 

 ed from the Mediterranean, two species of which Mr Bowerbank makes 

 out ; and the West Indian, the source of which is principally the 

 Bahama Islands, and consists of one species only." Microsc. Journ. i. 

 p. 9. 



