THE INTELLECTUAL OBSEEVEK. 



OCTOBER, 1867 



VENUS' FLOWEK-BASKET— EUPLECTELLA 



SPECIOSA. 



BY HENEY J. SLACK, F.G.S., SEC. E.H.S. 

 ( With a Coloured Plate.) 



The shores of the Phillippine Islands yield the exquisite object 

 which has been well called Venus' Flower-basket, and which 

 is known to science as a sponge, to which the name Euplectella 

 speciosa has been appropriately given. The ordinary observer, 

 familiar only with the sponges in domestic use, or with some- 

 what similar structures of branched and finger-like forms 

 frequently found on the beaches of frequented watering-places, 

 will be much surprised at finding the name of sponge applied 

 to the elaborate network of the Euplectella, which looks like an 

 exceedingly delicate fabric of some such material as biscuit 

 china, and which might readily be taken for a coral, although 

 an investigation of its structure would show that it was 

 entirely different from any polyp formation. Our engraving 

 represents one of the finest of the British Museum specimens, 

 but the following description is chiefly taken from a specimen 

 in the writer's possession, which he was able, at no small risk 

 of its destruction, to examine more carefully than "could be 

 effected in any public institution. 



The naturalist groups together a number of bodies varying 

 considerably in appearance, in structure, and in material, under 

 the designation sponge. Sponges are, however, all alike in certain 

 general characters. They all consist of a living mass of delicate 

 gelatinous fleshy material, called sarcode, and of a framework 

 or skeleton, with certain appendages, which is either horny 

 (keratose), calcareous, or silicious. The common toilet sponge 

 belongs to the horny series, and the Venus' Flower-basket is 

 the most exquisite of the silicious. 



Whatever may be the form of the sponge skeleton, or of 

 the spicules of various shapes which belong to it, or are 

 embedded in the soft flesh, it is by, and in, that flesh, that they 



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