HOW SPONGES LIVE. 
ginc that we can visit one of the 
in the Mediterranean Sea 
or the Gulf of Mexico, 
where the rocks from fifty 
to a hundred and fifty feet 
below the surface of the 
clear blue water are covered 
with sponges of every size, 
and shape, and texture. 
If we could visit these 
sponge - beds during the : r 
summer or autumn months, 
and examine carefully the 
slimy lining of one of the 
bigf tubes of a living ==i 
& ■ 
* 
sponge, we should find that 
minute bags of slime 
(i, a, Fig. 11) are begin- 
ning to appear in it, cither ' 
scattered through the -,. " - .V/^,^ 
sponge or collected in hcai 
These arc sponge-eggs, out 
of which young sponges 
are to grow, and in many 
ways they arc very like a hen's i Within, 
as may be seen through their transparent 
ing, is Something which answers to tl I of 
an egg, with a solid spot or nucleus in it '1 
yelk begins soon to divide into tw 
masses of slime, and tlu 
these four into eight, and so on till the 
globe of small round cells, the 
young sponge. And now a cl 
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