SEA-ANEMONES AND CORALS. 



No. 17. 



mals, the holes are quite regular, and have a star- 



shaped figure (see \\ood-cul 

 No. 14), produced by the 

 partitions arranged like the 

 spokes of a wheel, as I have 

 described them to you in 

 the single little Coral and 

 in the Sea-Anemone. All 

 Corals of the kinds I speak 

 of are formed in this way, 

 whether they grow in 

 branches or in round mass- 

 es, whether they bud from 

 the base or from the side, 

 or increase by division 

 the structure of every sepa- 

 rate little animal is the one that I have tried to explain 

 to you. 



Persons who have not had an opportunity of watch- 

 ing the Corals when alive, and have only seen the dry 

 coral heads with their regular pits throughout, often 

 talk of coral insects as building the Corals, comparing 

 them to the bee that builds its honeycomb. But this is 

 not correct. There are no coral insects, for insects are 

 entirely different from the coral animals. The hard 

 Coral is composed of the solid frame of the animals 

 themselves, their skeletons as it were, and is not a struc- 

 ture built by them, as the bee builds its honeycomb. 

 The honeycomb is truly a kind of house which the 

 bee constructs for itself; there it lives, lays its eggs, and 

 stores its honey, flying in and out at will. But the cells in 

 a coral head are a part of the coral animals themselves ; 



