

" EL 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Vol. III. —NOVEMBER, 1869.— No. 9. 
co SU (9 9t 9) 97-2 
SPONGES. 
BY BRYCE M. WRIGHT, JR. 

Do sponges belong to the animal or vegetable *kingdom 
seems to be the first question which presents itself to our 
mind in investigating these curious organisms, and this 
i . . Pme 4 
question involves a definition of a boundary line between 
the two kingdoms, which, of all the most perplexing queries 
that can be found for an unlucky naturalist, perhaps is the 
most difficult. Eminent zoölogists have, at various times, 
ranked them as belonging to the class of Zoóphyta, but 
others equally clever have disputed this right, and have 
claimed them as belonging to the vegetable kingdom. In 
the celebrated work of Dr. Johnston on British Zoóphyta, 
disposes of them in a very summary manner. The fol- 
lowing extract deserves attention: “if they are not the pro- 
duction of polypes, the zoólogist who retains them in his 
Province must contend that they are individually animals, 
an opinion to which I cannot assent seeing that they have 
no animal structure or individual organs, and exhibit no one 
function usually supposed to be characteristic of the animal 
Kingdom. Like vegetables they are permanently fixed; 
like vegetables they are non-irresistible ; their movements, 
like those of vegetables, are extrinsical and involuntary ; 
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