162 Venus' Flower -basket. 



are all produced. In the silicious series, the glossy threads, or 

 spicules, have a very small channel running through them, and 

 they are formed, not in one piece, as a glass-blower spins his 

 so-called hair, but by a series of additions, arranged as con- 

 centric layers, each layer being a deposit from the living 

 sarcode. 



In the Euplectella the structure bears, at first sight, an 

 aspect of basket-work, and imagination might picture the 

 young mermaidens varying their legendary occupation of 

 combing their sea-green hair, by employing their finny fingers 

 in weaving together the glittering threads of which it is com- 

 posed. It is, however, not a product of any mechanical 

 plaiting, but of organic life and growth, and a microscopic 

 examination at once distinguishes it from any structure put 

 together by the intertwisting of separate fibres. To view the 

 Euplectella under the microscope without breaking it to pieces 

 requires a good deal of trouble, and a little skill ; but it is very 

 advisable to examine it in an uninjured condition, as well as to 

 study details of structure in fragments that may be broken off. 

 From the size of the Euplectella it cannot be examined if laid 

 across the stage of Hoss's large and fine microscope, as that 

 instrument, so admirable in most other particulars, has not 

 enough rack-room to raise a low-power object-glass to the 

 focussing height above so thick an object. Smith and Beck's 

 pattern is superior in this respect, and in our investigation we 

 employed both. To view the Euplectella under the Ross 

 binocular, we rigged up a temporary stage of card under the 

 brass stage of the instrument, and then got on pretty well with 

 three inch, and one and a half inch powers. Further examina- 

 tion was made with a monocular Smith and Beck, the delicate 

 sponge being placed across the stage, and supported by a box 

 at each end. 



A good specimen, fully grown, of the Venus' Flower-basket 

 will be rather more than a foot long, and about two inches in 

 diameter at its widest end. It takes, as our plate shows, the 

 curve, and somewhat the form, of a cornucopia. At the base 

 it is covered with a quantity of silicious hairs, part of which 

 the natives have a knack of removing before sending it to 

 Europe. The natural position of this sponge is upright, and it 

 probably grows on a soft sea-bed. At nearly equal distances, 

 say from one-eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch apart, vertical 

 bundles of silicious threads rise from the base, and are con- 

 tinued to the top of the structure, and at right angles to these 

 wc observe a series of horizontal rows, crossing the former 

 and giving rise to square meshes of considerable regularity. 

 Slanting fibres cross the corners of these squares, and give a 

 more or less rounded appearance to the central apertures ; 



