HOW SPONGES LIVE. 
33 
CHAPTER III. 
HOW SPONGES LIVE. 
And here were coral bowers, 
And grots of madrepores, 
And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye 
As e'er was mossy bed, 
Whereon the wood-nymphs lie, 
With languid limbs in summer's sultry hours. 
SOUTHEY. 
HERE are certainly very few 
'people, from the little child in 
the nursery to the artist in ' his 
studio, or from the lady in her bed- 
room to the groom in the stables, 
who do not handle a sponge almost 
every day of their lives ; and yet, pro- 
bably, not one in a hundred of these 
people has ever really looked at 
the sponge he or she is using, or 
considered what a curious and beau- 
tiful thing it is. 
Yet there are at least two things 
in even the commonest sponges 
which ought at once to attract attention. If you 
take a piece of ordinary honey-comb sponge in 
your hand and look at it, you cannot help being 
struck by the large holes, few and far between, upon 
