I/O IV SPONGES LIVE. 35 
delicately? What architect has laid the fibre* 
skilfully, and formed such a wonderful and intr; 
structure ? 
The architect is one of Life's children, whose his- 
tory we must next consider ; for though the 
was long thought to be a plant, we now know that 
it is the skeleton or framework of a slime -animal, 
a little higher than those spoken of in the last 
chapter. When the sponge which you hold in your 
hand was alive, growing on the rocks in the warm 
deep waters of the Grecian Archipelago or the 
Red Sea, it did not consist merely of the soft fibre 
you now see, but was covered all over the on' 
and lined throughout, even along the smallest of its 
tubes, with a film of slime. This slime, though it 
appears to be all one mass with specks of solid matter 
here and there, is really made up of Amoeba: or finger- 
slime beings (see Fig. 2), and if any little piece is I 
off it floats in the water and puts out fingers, 
as the Amoeba docs. Nevertheless, in the 
all these separate cells arc not independent en 
but form the flesh of one single sponge -animal, 
which lives, breathes, feeds, grows, and gives t 
young ones in its ocean home. 
At the bottom of the warm n the Mi 
ranean coast or in the Gulf ^i Mexico tl 
animals live in wild profusion, sometimes hidin 
submarine caverns, sometimes standinj 
top of a slab of rock, or often hangii 
Some are round like cups, some branch. 
SOme thin and spre.nl out like a Ian ; 
scarcely a colour from a brilliant 
dingy brow n, w hich is not 
