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There sponges grew in every shape, globular, stalklike, leaflike, fingerlike. With reasonable accuracy, they lived up to their nicknames of basket sponges, chalice sponges, distaff sponges, elkhorn sponges, lion's paws, peacock's tails, and Neptune's gloves designations bestowed on them by fishermen, more poetically inclined than scientists.
They have tall eight-sided and round bases, similar capitals and a moulded ring half-way up, while the whole shaft from ring to base and from ring to capital is carved with the utmost delicacy, with spirals, with diaper patterns, or with leaflike scales. Above the capitals the pointed openings are filled in with veils of tracery of three different patterns.
We remark the fact that in the higher of these agglomerations of condensed vapour, the clouds which float at an elevation of from twenty to thirty thousand feet or more, the masses are generally thin, and arranged more or less in a leaflike form, though even here a tendency to produce spherical clouds is apparent.
In the furthest corner of the wild plum grove she laid it down, gently stroked its soft forehead, and smoothed the leaflike ears. The little thing closed its eyes. Once more the Sioux girl bent over and laid her cheek against the fawn's head; then reluctantly she moved away, hoping and yet dreading that the mother would return. She crouched under a clump of bushes near by, and gave the doe call.
Great smooth-worn boulders lay strewn about as if flung at random from some giant hand. A dry, black, leaflike substance patched their surfaces, and this George told me is the wakwanapsk which the Indians in their extremity of hunger use for broth. Though black and leaflike when mature, it is, in its beginning, like a disk of tiny round green spots, and from this it gets its name.
Any sport or variation in the shape of greater conspicuousness would fall a quick prey to the enemy and its line be cut off forever. The same sort of activity has resulted in the peculiar green color of the katydid. This creature lives chiefly upon the leaves of trees and shrubs. This insect is so large that, even though it is leaflike in color, it might still be conspicuous.
Again, it was not the fact that they lived among leaves which made them look leaflike, but it is because they look like leaves that they escaped being devoured. The katydid has materially assisted in its own preservation by being active chiefly at night. In the daytime it keeps comparatively quiet. Thus seated upon a twig, especially if hidden among the leaves, it is almost unnoticeable.
They swam with quiverings of their four leaflike arms, letting the opulent tresses of their tentacles dangle in the drift. I wanted to preserve a few specimens of these delicate zoophytes, but they were merely clouds, shadows, illusions, melting and evaporating outside their native element.
In the case of rock it is the consequence of extreme changes in temperature. The surface sheet in expanding under sudden heat detaches itself in large, leaflike layers. In front of my wife's cottage up north there lay an exfoliated rock in which I watched the process for a number of years.
The captain approached and stuck his dagger vertically between the shells to discourage any ideas about closing; then with his hands he raised the fringed, membrane-filled tunic that made up the animal's mantle. There, between its leaflike folds, I saw a loose pearl as big as a coconut. Its globular shape, perfect clarity, and wonderful orient made it a jewel of incalculable value.
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