442 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



members of this class are scantily distributed, or of 

 trivial importance in the ceconomy of Nature ; on the 

 contrary, they are to be met with under innumerable 

 different aspects, dispersed along every coast, from 



" the dismal shore 



Of cold and pitiless Labrador, 



Where, under the moon, upon mountains of frost, 



Full many a mariner's bones are toss'd," 



to the regions of the tropics and the torrid zone. The 

 Corals themselves are not more abundant, neither 

 have they left more lasting proofs of the universality 

 of their existence 



" In the dark backward and abysm of time." 



From the earliest appearance of life upon our globe, 

 from the Silurian rocks to the most modern deposits, 



" Through antediluvian mists as thick as London fog," 



the skeletons of the Polyzoa present themselves in 

 rich profusion, testifying that, although "men were 

 none" to see, much less appreciate such a spectacle, 

 the cilia worked as vigorously upon the arms of ex- 

 tinct races, as on the tentacula of the Flustrse and 

 Eowerbankise in our own aquaria. 



