nt. Vivere quidem Spongias adhaerendo
_Aristoteles_ censet: absolute vero minime: sensumque aliquem habere, vel
eo argumento (inquit) credantur, quod difficillime abstrahantur, nisi
clanculum agatur: Atq; ad avulsoris accessum ita contrahantur, ut eas
evellere difficile sit, quod idem etiam faciunt quoties flatus
tempestatesque urgent. Puto autem illis succum sordidum quem supra diximus
carnis loco a natura attributum fuisse: atque meatibus latioribus tanquam
intestinis aut interaneis uti. Caeterum pars ea quae Spongiae cautibus
adhaerent est tanquam folii petiolus, a quo veluti collum quoddam gracile
incipit: quod deinde in latitudinem diffusum capitis globum facit.
Recentibus nihil est fistulosum, haesitantque tanquam radicibus. Superne
omnes propemodum meatus concreti latent: inferne vero quaterni aut quini
patent, per quos eas sugere existimamus_. From which Description, they
seem to be a kind of Plant-Animal that adheres to a Rock, and these small
_fibres_ or threads which we have described, seem to have been the Vessels
which ('tis very probable) were very much bigger whil'st the _Interstitia_
were fill'd (as he affirms) with a mucous, pulpy or fleshy substance; but
upon the drying were shrunk into the bigness they now appear.

The texture of it is such, that I have not yet met with any other body in
the world that has the like, but onely one of a larger sort of Sponge
(which is preserv'd in the _Museum Harveanum_ belonging to the most
Illustrious and most learned Society of the _Physicians_ of _London_) which
is of a horney, or rather of a _petrify'd_ substance. And of this indeed,
the texture and make is exactly the same with common Sponges, but onely
that both the holes and the _fibres_, or texture of it is exceedingly much
bigger, for some of the holes were above an Inch and half over, and the
_fibres_ and _texture_ of it was bigg enough to be distinguished easily
with ones eye, but conspicuously with an ordinary single _Microscope_. And
these indeed, seem'd to have been the habitation of some Animal; and
examining _Aristotle_, I find a very consonant account hereunto, namely,
that he had known a certain little Animal, call'd _Pinnothera_, like a
Spider, to be bred in those caverns of a Sponge, from within which, by
opening and closing those holes, he insnares and catches the little Fishes;
and in another place he says, That 'tis very confidently reported, that
there are certain Moths or Worms that reside in the