[ 593 ] 
I had pulled them, to fee them enter into them, and 
difappear, being loft in the windings of the tubes. 
I thought to have found them again ; but it was a 
difficult talk to fearch for them. I crufhed them, 
or they were themfelves maffied in the tubes, which 
I prefled, and of which I had confequently fpoiled 
the texture ; but I could not find them ; and this 
happened feveral times. 
Thefe worms have no particular lodge : they walk 
indifferently into the tubular labyrinth. So that, 
without offence to Pliny and other naturalifts, I do 
not fee, that it is in their power to dilate and contrad: 
the bodies of the fponges j which always remain in 
the fame ftate of magnitude, without being any 
way fenfible to the touch, or any other motion of 
the fea, nor to any other accident whatefover, being 
an inanimate body ; for the animal fenfitive life, or 
whatever you will have it, belongs only to the worms, 
that form thefe bodies, and which are their dwelling- 
places i and which, by the flaver or juice they de- 
pofit, make the fponge increafe or grow, as bees, 
wafps, and efpecially the wood-lice of America, in- 
creafe their nefts or cells. 
Thefe fponges, nefts, or cells, are attached to fome 
folid body in the fea. Some kinds are fixed to rocks ; 
others, as thofe I am fpeaking of, are faftened to 
heaps of fand, or to pieces of petrified matter, and 
even upon fandy [bottoms ; and the fea putting in 
motion the fand, and the little parcels of broken 
fhells, forces them into the holes of the fponge : 
there the fand- binds and mixes with mucilaginous 
juice, and never is loofed from it but when the 
fponge is well dried, or with the mucilage when 
Vol. 50. 4G putrified. 
