54 
Ray rejects the notion of life and sensation in sponges, and 
agrees with Impcrato in their relationship to the Fungi. (Ray’s 
Historia Plantarum, 168G.) 
Linnceus in 1 7G0 arranged the sponges amongst the crj'ptoganious 
Alg?e. 
Ihe sponges were thus bandied about between the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms, until Ellis advocated their animal nature, and 
Linnseus by his advice in the twelfth edition of the Sytema, 
airanged them amongst the animal zoojihytes. From this time the 
animality of sponges was universally assumed, and their functions 
generally admitted, not, however, without opposition, the most 
celebrated of those who opposed this theory was Spellanzi. 
I must not, however, trespass further on your time and patience, 
with the pro and cons of the early naturalists. The animal nature 
of sponges has now been definitely settled, and their true position 
in the animal kingdom fixed. Montague, in 1818, says, “The 
true character of Sponges is that of a living inactive gelatinous 
flesh, supported by innumerable cartilaginous or corneous fibres or 
spicula, most commonly ramified or reticulated, and furnished 
more or less with external pores or small mouths.” 
Ray describes two species of Fresh Water Sponge, as having 
been found in the river Yare, near Forwich, by ISTewton. 
I have found the same forms SpnmjiUa fluviatiUs and SpulrheJla 
in the same habitat. 
.Various .species of Sponge have from time to time been described 
by difierent observers, but no systematic work appeared until the 
publication of the British Sponges, by Dr. Johnson, in 1842. A 
work remarkable for its research, and the accuracy of the Author’s 
observations. 
The followmg is his character of these organisms : — 
Class Amorphozoa. 
Character. — Organized bodies growing in a variety of forms, 
permanently rooted, unmoving, and unirritable, fleshy fibre, retic- 
ular, or irregularly cellular, elastic, and bibular, composed of a 
fibro corneous axis, or skeleton, often interwoven with silicious or 
calcareous spicula, and containing an organic gelatine in the inter- 
stices and interior canals, reproduction by gelatinous granules 
generated in the interior, but in no special organ. 
