28 OPINIONS AND DISCOVERIES 



tained within ; neither can they easily be pulled from their 

 rocks, and therefore must be cut away ; whereby they are 

 seen to shed a deale of bloud, or that which resembleth 

 bloud very neer." — Pliny further informs us that some writ- 

 ers distinguish sponges into male and female, " for some of 

 them they have thought to be of the male sex, to wit, those 

 which have smaller pipes or concavities, and those growing 

 thicker and more compact, whereby they sucke \"pmore mois- 

 ture ; and these, oiu" delicate and dainty people die in 

 colours, and otherwhile give them a purple tinctm-e. Others 

 they count of the female sex, namely such as have bigger 

 pipes, and the same running throughout one continuity with- 

 out interruption. Of the male kind, some be harder than 

 others, which they call Tragos ; the pipes whereof are the 

 finest, and stand thickest together."* 



It thus appears that sponges were the first of the zoo- 

 phytes to have their animality asserted, — a fact sufficiently 

 remarkable seeing that in their fixedness, their unsymmetrical 

 shapes, their texture and defect of all defined organs, and 

 their insensibleness, they exhibit every evidence which 

 would naturally force us to a contrary conclusion. And 

 these evidences, from outward shew and appearances, soon 

 proved their influence, for when, after the revival of letters 

 and science, natm*al history began to be studied anew, spon- 

 ges were uniformly classed and described as members of 

 the vegetable kingdom, being reckoned among the most 

 imperfect productions of their class ; and as they were un- 

 seminared, so, in accordance with the theories of the pe- 

 riod, their generation was attributed to a fermentation of 



* p. Hollaiicl's translation of " The Natvrall Historie of C. Plinivs 

 fprvndvs," i. p 262-3; and ii. p 423, Lend. 1634- 



