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538 products. . . . Such arrangements are entirely artificial, notwithstanding that they are often so artistically done as to have a most deceptively natural appearance." The prettiest specimen of Hyalonema the writer ever saw, one worthy to be called unique, was a clever put-up job. Even to a part of the polyp encasement, from one end to the other, it was put together much as we have seen some fraudulent bird-stuffers put into the tail, wings, and even the crown of the head, feathers from other birds.

Hyalonema was the first of the glass-sponges known to science. It came among the savants as an anomaly of animal structure. Soon after appeared the Venus's Flower-Basket, the peerless beauty among the glass-sponges. In two remarkable respects it resembled its predecessor. Like Hyalonema, it was moored to the sea-bottom by glassy threads; and, like the pretty Glass-Rope Sponge, it made its début in scientific society standing on its head! It was actually so figured by Dr. Owen, its original describer, in the "Zoological Transactions of London." The name by which it is now known is well deserved by an object so lovely—Euplectella speciosa. The first of these words means well-woven, while the second intensifies the first, so that the meaning really is, the specially beautiful, well-woven (Fig. 3.)

It is almost hopeless to attempt a description of Euplectella in words. Nor has any artist yet done justice with his pencil to the delicate fabric. The first specimen that reached England, and which for a long time was the only one known, was purchased by William J. Broderip, for the sum of $150 in gold. Says Prof. Owen: "Mr. Cuming has intrusted to me for description one of the most singular and beautiful, as well as the rarest of the marine productions." Euplectella is in form a cornucopia, at the lower end about an inch in diameter, and in good specimens, after making a graceful curve, terminating at top in a width of nearly two inches. This part has a cover with a frilled edge, which, in a complete specimen, projects about a fourth of an inch over the sides. The bottom, or smaller end, is encompassed with a dense ruff of glass threads, so delicately white, flexible, and fine, that they look like a tuft of floss-silk. This muff-like surrounding is sunk into the deep-sea ooze, the fibres pointing up, which, though effectual, is certainly an odd way of mooring itself. In this manner this sponge is, when living, in a perpetual bath of mud. Like Hyalonema, our Euplectella is an anchoring sponge. Venus's Flower-Basket looks like a structure made of spun-glass; and so fragile that one hesitates to take it into the hands. It is wonderfully light—reminding, in this respect, of the skeleton or phantom flowers sometimes seen under glass. But Euplectella, although really so delicate, is quite strong. The threads which make up this fabric of woven