Part 32 (1/2)

”Then a sponge doesn't seed itself, like a plant?”

”No, Mr Murren,” said Colin; ”so far as I understand, the larvae, though of a very siot to grohere it falls, or not at all, but a sponge larva, if it doesn't find a suitable place on the first thing it touches, can swim about blindly until it finds one that will do”

”Now about these sponges, Colin,” his host said, i hilass and tell me what you think about the bed”

”There are quite a lot of sponges there,” the boy answered after a few ood size, too, but a number of them are dead See, the sand has drifted half over them There's too much sand and too little rock”

”Should they have a rock bottom?” the manufacturer queried

”Rock around put in, ”but a li'l bit o' san' don' do no hahm It shows dat de wateh aht there, Mr Murren, sponges must be in a current after they have once taken hold They can't swiet their food, so, like all the fixed forms of life, their food h food carried past for thee has to ainst the rush of water and then it becomes too coarse for commercial use Some of the polyps live on tiny aniets like glass They call theht for their development, they're a most particular sort of creature”

”But how do they feed?”

”A sponge is a jelly-like colony of cells with a fibrous skeleton,” the boy explained; ”the outside of him is toward the water and is full of sh his flesh and open at last into a big pore leading to the outside All these pores are lined with tiny hairs that h the jelly-like flesh, which absorbs any h the little pores and sent out through the big ones Soe forms are of one animal, most are of colonies But they are all on the saain”

”Then is a growing sponge all full of jelly?” asked Paul

”All that I have seen are,” Colin replied

”How do they get it out?”

”I c'n tell you 'bout that,” interjected Pete ”A sponge is all slimy an' nasty Yo' put him in de sun an' he dies quick an' all de slime runs out Den yo' buries him in san' 'til his insides all decay Den you puts him in a pon' an' takes him out, an' beats him wif a stick, lots o'

times oveh, maybe, 'til all de jelly an' all de san' an' all de muck am out ob him Den yo' wash him in fresh wateh 'til he's clean an' lets hies will reproduce the to his for them?”

”You don't have to work that way on their own beds, sir,” the boy answered, ”planting is done to getthe sea botto unused”

”And you say only rocky land will do?”

”Any botto covered up, Mr Murren Soft sand ash, rass or seaill s cells But any hard bottoes”

”I see,” was the rejoinder ”As you say, the situation is not unlike fare land or plant uncultivated land”

”You can get land suitable for sponges for al, I suppose,”

Colin said, ”and then if you had a ser area froround?”

The boy hesitated

”I hardly think I know enough about it to say, Mr Murren,” he said; ”you ought to get an expert”

”I'll get an expert before I pay cash,” was the prompt answer, ”but I want to knohat you think”

”Well, then, sir,” Colin answered, ”I think it's good ground, but not good enough”