SEA-ANEMONES AND CORALS. 



I dare say you have seen specimens of Corals, be- 

 cause they are so beauti- 

 ful that all who travel to 

 the tropical oceans where 

 they grow, to the coast 

 of Florida, to the Pacific, 

 and the East Indies, 

 bring home specimens 

 of them. But when we 

 see them at home, as 

 they are brought from 

 foreign lands, we must 

 remember that all the 

 soft and moving parts 

 are gone ; they decay 

 when the animal dies, 

 and nothing remains but 

 the hard frame which I have described to you. Not- 

 withstanding this, however, we can see in such a mass 

 of dead Coral the spot where every little animal has 

 lived. Some of them form round masses called coral 

 heads. Such coral heads differ in appearance accord- 

 ing to the method of growing of the coral animal by 

 which they were formed. In a dead coral mass, for 

 instance, made by those animals which have the trum- 

 pet shape, and which increase by dividing and spread- 

 ing till the separate mouths or openings coalesce and 

 run into one another, the marks that are left are uneven, 

 forming undulating lines on the surface (No. 17).* In 

 the kind which does not widen as it grows, but in 

 which the spaces are filled by the budding of new am" 



* Meandrina. 



No. 1 6. 



