﻿Sponges. 



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The first Hyalonema Sieboldii was therefore placed by the great micro - 

 scopist, Ehrenberg, among the specimens of Japanese art. New specimens, 

 less mutilated than the first one, were constantly added to the European 

 museums, until finally Hyalonema was promoted from the cabinet of 

 Japanese art to the museum of natural curiosities. 



Still the question as to its origin and nature remained doubtful ; the 

 artificial combinations in which it was generally found, were very mis- 

 leading. The investing leathery membrane was undoubtedly a polyp. 

 The cup-shaped body which inclosed the wisp was no less certainly a 

 sponge ; but the wisp itself remained a mystery. This curious and an- 

 omalous form was to be classified, and the war of sponges began. All this 

 time while the angry war of words went on, Hyalonema stood on its head 

 waiting to be classified. Not one of all its angry champions knew enough 

 to put it in its correct position. The conical mass had been from the first 

 assumed as its base, out of which the spreading wisp of glass hair was 

 supposed to spring upward into the water. Finally Prof. Lovin, of Chris- 

 tiana, pointed out the fact that the Hyalonema had been described in an 

 inverted position. He first suggested that the glass coil was used for the 

 purpose of anchoring the sponge in the mud, and, of course, formed its 

 base. In 1868, Dr. Percival Wright brought up a specimen of Hyalonema 

 from a depth of 600 fathoms in Setubal Bay, off the coast of Portugal. 



The Holtenia, which was also dredged off the coast of Portugal, is in 

 shape a symmetrical oval, or sphere, with a cup-shaped depression in the 

 top. The two, however, which bear off the palm for exquisite beauty are 

 the Rossella Velata and the Euplectella Speciosa. The Rosella is not un- 

 like the Holtenia ; its body is of a symmetrical oval form, composed of a 

 beautiful network of glass spicules invested by the sarcode. The Euplec- 

 tella is even more beautiful than any of the others ; it is brought from the 

 Philippine Seas. The first specimen was described and figured as early 

 as 1841 by Richard Owen, and was called E. Aspergillum. In 1858 the 

 E. Cucumer, and later, the most exquisite of all -the E. Speciosa — made 

 their entree into scientific society, the acknowledged queens of the Glass 

 Sponges. 



The Euplectella belongs to a very special group of sponges which have 

 been called the Hexactinellidae, from the circumstance that the silicious 

 spicules throughout the whole family appear to be six-rayed. This funda- 

 mental form is often curiously masked — one, two, three or four of the rays 

 being frequently suppressed; but where this is the case, some branching or 

 splitting of the central canal, or some symmetrical arrangement of projec- 

 tions in the ornament of the spicule, is sure not only to' refer it to its 



