46 LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
beautiful patterns. Yet each one of these spicules, 
perfect and complete in form as it is, is so small as 
to be barely visible as a speck to the naked eye, and 
so transparent that when mounted on glass for the 
microscope it is impossible to detect even a group of 
them without a lens. 
In Fig. 1 6 may be seen three kinds in their natural 
position in the flesh of the sponge, the large ones 
binding the sponge together, and the small feathery 
and anchor-shaped spicules protecting the flesh ; and 
jr ig j6 small as these last appear, 
yet they are even now 
magnified 100 times. 
Lastly, in the higher flint- 
buildingspongesthe archi- 
tect gets beyond mere 
separate spicules, or binds 
them together so skil- 
fully with fine, transparent 
flint threads that they 
form a network of wond- 
A piece of a flint-sponge with the , T . . 
tarcode or flesh, magnified 100 times. ro "S beauty. Looking at 
From life. the marvellously delicate 
Venus' basket (Fig. 17) which grows in the seas 
near the Philippine Islands, it is almost impossible to 
persuade ourselves that the flint-lace of which it is made 
has been constructed by an animal with no eyes to see 
the beautiful pattern it was weaving, and no machinery 
in its body with which to direct the web; and that out of 
mere slime cells has arisen a fairy structure such as the 
most skilled human artist might try in vain to rival ! 
These sponges live chiefly in very deep water. In one 
of them, called the glass-rope sponge, the animal is 
