It is a peculiar feature of these beautiful little shells (whose delicate sculpture frequently reminds the observer of the finest specimens of the hollow ivory balls carved by the Chinese) that they are usually surmounted by a number of spine-like projections, very frequently having a radiate disposition. Some have an oblong shape (Podocyrtis), others a discoid form (Haliomma), from the circumference of which the silicious spines project at regular intervals, so as to give them a star-like aspect. They are generally of a smaller size than even the Foraminifera, appear to be almost as widely diffused, and have also largely contributed to the structure of the earth-rind. They were first discovered by Professor Ehrenberg at Cuxhaven, on the North Sea; they were afterwards found by him in collections made in the antarctic seas, and have been brought up by the sounding lead from the bottom of the Atlantic at depths of from 1,000 to 2,000 fathoms.
The term Infusoria, which formerly comprised a most heterogeneous assemblage of minute plants and animals, is now confined to the highest order of the Protozoa, distinguished from the Rhizopods by the possession of a mouth and of ciliary filaments, whose vibrations serve them both for progression through the water and for drawing alimentary particles into the interior of their body. Though most of the Infusoria live in ponds, morasses, pools, wells, or cisterns, yet many are marine, as, for instance, the Carchesium polypinum, which is frequently found attached to corallines, and the Vaginicola valvata, which from its sheath and valve strongly reminds one of a tubicolar annelide.
Marine Infusoria.
a. Vaginicola valvata, showing animal extended, and valve (φ) raised.
a′. The same, showing animal contracted within its sheath,
and valve (φ′) shut down.
b. Lagotia viridis, showing rotatory organ (ξ).
b′. Young animal of preceding.
The wide diffusion both in time and space of the marine Protozoa, and chiefly of the Foraminifera and Polycystina, is a sufficient proof of their vast importance in the household of the seas. Along with the Diatoms and other microscopical forms of vegetation on which their own existence depends, they evidently constitute the basis on which the superstructure of all the higher orders of the animal life of the ocean reposes. Hosts of minute crustaceans, annelides, acalephæ, and molluscs, feed upon their inexhaustible legions, and serve in their turn to sustain creatures of a larger and still larger size until finally Man is enabled to feast on the abundance of the seas.
The Porifera, or Sponges, were formerly supposed to belong to the vegetable kingdom, but their animal nature is now fully ascertained, for modern researches have proved that the soft glairy substance with which their skeleton is invested during life consists of "sarcode," similar to that which forms the soft parts of the Foraminifera and Polycystina. It is by this animated or organic gelatine, which can generally be pressed out with the finger, and in some species is copious even to nauseousness, that the solid parts of the sponge are deposited, and from it the whole growth of the mass proceeds. The framework or skeleton of the Porifera is usually composed of horny fibres of unequal thickness, which ramify and interlace in every possible direction, anastomosing with each other so as to form innumerable continuous cells and intricate canals, the walls of which in the recent sponge are crusted over with the gelatinous living cortex.
Single interspace or open cell, and surrounding finer meshwork of the skeleton of a sponge.
