general nature of coral secretions. These secretions, it should be further observed, increase within simultaneously with growth, and every new animal adds to those previously formed. They go on throughout the sides and base of each polyp, excepting generally the exterior skin, as above stated; and the whole forms a calcareous framework penetrated by the animal tissues, some of these tissues corresponding to and occupying the cellules of the corallum, and others penetrating the solid parts in minute ramifications. Coral is also secreted between the radiating fleshy lamelle of the internal cavity of the polyp, producing the radiated calcareous lamella which constitute the star of a cell. In the corallum of a Madrepora or an Astræa, each surface cell or star belonged to a separate polyp, and the star was formed as here explained.

It would lead to a too long digression from the main topic before us, to explain the principles upon which the forms of zoophytes depend. They are dwelt upon at length in another volume. In this place we may briefly allude to the principal varieties of form proceeding from the budding process, and to a single point in their mode of growth, upon which much of their importance in reef-making depends.

d. Forms of Actinoid Zoophytes.-Zoophytes imitate nearly every variety of vegetation. Trees of coral are well known; and although not emulating in size the oaks of our forests— for they do not exceed six or eight feet in height—they are gracefully branched, and the whole surface blooms with coral polyps in place of leaves and flowers. Shrubbery, tufts of rushes, beds of pinks, and feathery mosses, are most exactly imitated. Many species spread out in broad leaves or folia, and resemble some large leaved plant just unfolding; when alive, the surface of each leaf is covered with polyp flowers. The cactus, the lichen clinging to the rock, and the fungus in all its varieties, have their numerous representatives. Besides these forms imitating vegetation, there are gracefully modelled vases, some of which are three or four feet in diameter, made up of a net work of branches and branchlets, and sprigs of flowers. There are also solid coral hemispheres like domes among the vases and shrubbery, occasionally ten, or even twenty feet in diameter, whose symmetrical

surface is gorgeously decked with polyp stars of purple and emerald green.*

All the many shapes proceed in each instance from a single germ, which grows and buds under a few simple laws of development, and thus gives origin either to the branch, the broad leaf, the column, or the hemisphere.

e. Life and Death in Concurrent Progress.-But the more massy forms would not exist, and others would be of diminutive size, were it not for a peculiar mode of growth which characterises most coral zoophytes.

Life and death are here in concurrent or parallel progress, a condition favoured by the existence of coral secretions. In some instances, a simple polyp, while growing at top and constantly lengthening itself upward, is dying at its lower extremity, leaving the base of the coral bare, and destitute of any living tissues. The polyp thus continues rising in height, and death progresses below at the same rate, till at last the live polyp may be at the extremity of a coral stem many times its own length. This process is illustrated by figures on pages 62 and 78 of the Report on Zoophytes.

In species which bud and form large groups, the same operation takes place. In some instances the summit polyp or polyps bud and grow, while at a certain distance below the summit, the work of death is going on and polyps are gradually disappearing. There is thus a certain interval of life, the length of which interval is different for different species. There are zoophytes which grow to a height of several feet, and still only the upper one or two inches are living. The recent polyps at the top of the column are active with life, and vigorous in reproduction, while the more aged below, having reached the fixed limits of their existence, are disappearing. The enduring coral remains and constitutes the basement or stage of action for future generation of polyps.

But this death is not in progress alone at the base of the column or branch. Generally the whole interior of a corallum is dead, a result of the same process with that just explained. Thus, a Madrepora, although the branch may be an inch in

* See Dana's Report on Zoophytes, pp. 29 and 59–61.

diameter, is alive only to a depth of a line or two, the growing polyps of the surface having progressively died at their lower or inner extremity as they increased outward.

The large domes of Astræas, which have been stated to attain sometimes a diameter of ten or twenty feet, and are alive over the whole surface, owing to a symmetrical and unlimited mode of budding, are nothing but lifeless coral throughout the interior. Could the living portion be separated, it would form a hemispherical shell of polyps, in most species about half an inch thick. In some Porites of the same size, the whole mass is lifeless, excepting the exterior for a sixth of an inch in depth.

With such a mode of increase, there is no necessary limit to the growth of zoophytes. The rising column may grow upward, until it nears the surface of the sea, when death ensues simply from exposure, and not from any failure in its powers of life. The huge domes may enlarge till the same exposure just mentioned causes the death of the summit, and leaves only the sides to grow, which may increase indefinitely. Moreover, it is evident that, if the land supporting the growing coral were very gradually sinking, the upward increase of the coral might still be without limit.

There is hence sufficient means provided for the production of coral material for islands, however numerous. These humble ministers of creative power might, without other attributes than those they now possess, have laid the foundations of continents, and covered them with mountain ranges. This remark requires no limitation if we allow the requisite time, and connect with the power of growth such other agencies, soon to be explained, as have been at work in the Pacific since the reefs were there in progress.

The death of the polyps about the base of a coral tree would expose it seemingly to immediate wear from the waters around it, and especially as the texture is usually porous. But nature is not without an expedient to prevent a catastrophe that would be destructive to a large part of growing zoophytes, and would prevent the indefinite increase just explained. The dead surface becomes the resting place of numberless small incrusting species of corals, besides Nulli

pores, Serpulas, and some molluscs. In many instances the lichen-like Nullipore grows at the same rate with the rate of death in the zoophyte, and keeps itself up to the very limit of the living part. The dead trunk of the forest becomes covered with lichens and fungi, or in tropical climes, with other foliage and various foreign flowers: so among the coral productions of the sea there are forms of life which replace the dying polyp. The process of wear is thus entirely prevented.

The older polyps, before death, often increase their coral secretions within, filling the pores occupied by the tissues, and rendering the corallum more solid; and this is another means by which the trees of coral growth, though of slender form, are increased in strength and endurance.

The facility with which polyps repair a wound, aids in carrying forward the results above described. The breaking of a branch is no serious injury to a zoophyte. There is often some degree of sensibility apparent throughout a clump, even when of considerable size, and the shock, therefore, may occasion the polyps to close. But in an hour, or perhaps much less time, their tentacles will have again expanded; and such as were torn by the fracture will be in the process of complete restoration to their former size and powers. The fragment broken off, dropping in a favourable place, would become the germ of another coral plant, its base cementing by means of coral secretions to the rock on which it might rest; or if still in contact with any part of the parent tree, it would be reunited and continue to grow as before. The coral zoophyte may be levelled by transported masses swept over by the waves; yet, like the trodden sod, it sprouts again, and continues to grow and flourish as before. The sod, however, has roots which are still unhurt; while the zoophyte, which may be dead at base, has a root- -a source or centre of life-in every polyp that blossoms over its surface. Each animal might live and grow if separated from the rest, and would ultimately produce a mature zoophyte.

We close this review of the characters of coral animals, which is a mere abstract of the fuller descriptions in the General Report on Zoophytes, by alluding briefly to a second

division of zoophytes, not yet touched upon, and also to the Hydroidea and Bryozoa, which are likewise coral-making animals.

of

The Alcyonoidea.-The polyps of the Alcyonium* group zoophytes differ from those which have been occupying us, in having but eight tentacles, and these are fringed with minute papillæ. The organ-pipe coral (Tubipora), is of this kind. When expanded in the sea, a clump resembles a bed of pinks, or looks like a lilac-cluster that had been dropped in the water; and this resemblance extends to the colour and size of the flowers as well as their form.

Some of these zoophytes secrete lime and form a tube; and of this kind is the Tubipora. Others secrete only scattered granules of lime through the tissues; and still others are fleshy throughout. Many of them, besides forming granular calcareous secretions within the body of the polyp, give origin to a horny secretion at base, analogous to the epidermic secretions (hair-nails) of other animals; and this secretion receiving constant additions from the polyps as they are successively budded out, forms the axis of the growing branch. Of this character is the horny axis of the Gorgonia or seafan, which was long taken for a vegetable production. The crust which covers the axis consists of united polyps, which expand over its surface; and when expanded, each branch becomes a spike of flowers.

The Hydroidea.-The Hydroidea include the group's Hydra, Sertularia, Tubularia, and the allied. Some species form thready tufts and plumes of extreme delicacy, and others (the Hydra) are simple polyps. The fine branchlets of the feathery species consist, when dead, of one or two series of microscopic cells arranged like tiny cups, tubes, or goblets, along the stem; and when alive, each cell is the site of a minute flower animal. A coronet of tentacles surrounds the mouth, as in the actiniæ, though somewhat different in cha

* This name is derived from Alcyone, the fabled daughter of Neptune, and although from a Greek word, having the aspirate breathing to the first letter, it was written by the Latins as here (and by Linnæus and others), without the H,