298 SEA-ANEMONES, ZOOPHYTES, ETC. 



varies from yellowish-white to orange-red. Each of 

 the little papillae, when the Alcyoniiim is alive, ex- 

 pands into a lovely flower-like animal, so that the 

 fleshy-looking mass called dead man's fingers is in 

 reality a colony of zoophytes. The flesh is braced by 

 the distribution through it of a number of spicules of 

 lime. At the Crystal Palace, Brighton, and else- 

 where, these objects are kept alive, and the action of 

 the fringed petal-like tentacles of the zoophytes may 

 be witnessed through a magnifying glass. Alcyonium 

 is one of the sea- fans (Gorgonidc) y the dried, horny 

 skeletons of which may often be seen in mariners' 

 houses, or in museums. They usually possess a dark 

 homy axis covered with a red, orange, or pinkish 

 skin, when dried. These objects are also colonies of 

 zoophytes, of whose hard horny skeleton we have 

 been speaking. When alive this skeleton is covered 

 with flesh, and out of the latter there spring buds, 

 just as the bark covers a tree, and allows buds to 

 burst through it. We give the figure of a well-known 

 form called I sis hippuris, in which the relation of the 

 skeleton to the external flesh and zoophytes is at 

 once seen, his is found on the east coast of Scot- 

 land, and the Orkney Islands. 



We have several species of British gorgonias, of 

 which perhaps Gorgonia verrucosa, and G. flabellimi 

 are the largest and handsomest. These have been 

 kept alive at the Crystal Palace Aquarium for a short 

 time, but there is a difficulty in knowing how to feed 



