[CHAPTER X.]
COLLECTING MARINE INVERTEBRATES.
Sponges.—A live sponge is simply a vast colony of protozoan animals, each member of which lives an independent existence, but all are at the same time mutually dependent upon each other. The sponge of commerce, and the "cleaned" sponge of the museum collection is, like a branch of coral, merely the skeleton of the living aggregation. A live sponge is a dark colored, heavy, tough gelatinous mass, cold and clammy to handle, quickly offensive if left in the open air, and utterly useless until "cleaned," or rid of its mass of animal matter. The skeleton of a sponge may be horny, like that of the useful sponges of commerce; silicious, like the marvellously beautiful framework of the famous glass sponge of the Philippine Islands (Euplectella); or calcareous, like the curious little Grantia, which looks like a miniature bouquet-holder, with a frill of spines around its open end.
Owing to the extreme scarcity of sponge collections, very few persons know how great a variety of forms, and what really remarkable forms, exist no farther from home than the waters that wash the coast of our own beloved Florida. I once had the pleasure of collecting no fewer than sixteen distinct species on the beach between Biscayne Bay and New River Inlet, some of them of remarkable form, and all of them nicely cleaned for me by old Ocean.
Of course, I searched for sponges, and found many a fine specimen buried almost out of sight in the sand,—but what glorious fun it was, to be sure! There I obtained the large, coarse "basket sponge" (Hirvina campana), a hollow, inverted cone, often capable of holding a pailful of water; the remarkable finger sponge (Tuba vaginalis), which forms clusters of upright, hollow cylinders; a large cylindrical sponge of a rich brown color, and beautiful wiry texture, called Verongia fistularis; and sponges that were like trees, like interlocked deer antlers, and what not.
Professor H.A. Ward's last catalogue of invertebrates enumerated forty-three species of sponges that were on hand when the list went to press. Of these, the largest specimen was a huge Neptune's cup (Paterion neptuni), four feet in height, and shaped like a gigantic goblet, which came from the neighborhood of Singapore.
Therefore, I say, when on the seashore, be on the lookout for sponges. If you can find them on the beach ready cleaned and dried for you, so much the better; but if you get them alive, the soft animal matter must be macerated and washed away, just as you would macerate the flesh from a large skeleton. Soak them in fresh water for a short time to macerate the soft matter, then wash it out in salt water, and keep this up until the sponge is at last clean.
Corals.—The bleached white coral cluster of the cabinet is, like the sponge, only the skeleton of its former self. When it was forcibly torn from its foothold at the bottom of the sea it was covered with living coral polyps, which gave it the color which is peculiarly its own. Some species, notably Madrepores, when first taken from the water look like colored glass. The main branches are of a yellowish-brown tint, shading toward the tips to the most delicate and beautiful bluish purple. There is no way to preserve these colors, because they are due entirely to the presence of the living polyps. When those delicate organisms die, as die they must, the color vanishes, and if not cleaned and bleached, the coral assumes a dead, smoky brown appearance, suggestive of dust and dirt.
Therefore it is best to clean and bleach your corals at once. This requires a little time, but the process is "so simple a child can use it." Small specimens can be cleaned quickly by washing them in dilute muriatic acid, and afterward in clear water to keep the acid from going too far, and then placing them out in the sun to bleach. Large specimens cannot always be treated in this way, and the best plan for wholesale operations is to place the coral on the ground, in a sunny situation, and dash water upon it daily until the soft animal matter has been washed away, and the wind and sun combined have bleached the specimens to snowy whiteness.
As a general thing, the natives who live within reach of coral groves are in the habit of gathering it in quantity, cleaning it very successfully, and offering it for sale at prices that defy competition on the part of any scientific collector whose time is worth more than fifty cents a day. The best thing the collector can do is to get acquainted with the native fishermen and boatmen, treat them well and pay fairly, and then, if there is anything in the sea that his collectorship wants, it will soon be forthcoming. Thus, instead of the growth of the collection depending upon one or two men, there will be from ten to twenty local experts directly interested in it. I once came to a complete deadlock with my interpreter and three boatmen on the translation of the word "coral." They were Singhalese and Tamils, and coral was worse than Sanskrit to them. Finally, as a last despairing effort, I took a pencil and began to make a sketch of a madrepore. The crowd watched its progress in breathless silence until very soon one appreciative auditor shouted triumphantly, "Koki kalli!" The crowd joyfully echoed it, the mystery was solved, and in five minutes more we were afloat and on our way to seek