104 • SOMETHING ABOUT POLYPES. 



observed this family, says they might be made of great use as sea-barometers, 

 as they foretell atmospheric changes with great certainty: — "If the Anemones 

 be at any time shut or contracted, I have reason to apprehend an approaching 

 storm; that is, high winds and an agitated sea. When they are all shut, 

 but not remarkably contracted, they forbode weather somewhat less boisterous 

 but still attended with gales and a rough sea. If they appear in the least 

 open, or alternately, or frequently opening and closing, they indicate a mean 

 state both of winds and waves. When they are quite open, I expect tolerable 

 fine weather and a smooth sea. And, lastly, when their bodies are considerably 

 extended, and their limbs diverged, they surely prognosticate fixed fair weather 

 and a calm sea." Some of the species found in the Mediterranean are 

 considered by the Italians as a great delicacy for the table. 



The Pennatulidce, or Sea-pens, form a family of Polypes, which have 

 eight pinnate arms regularly arranged like the feather of a pen, on a long, 

 solid, stony polypary, enveloped in a fleshy cortex; on the margins of these 

 arms the Polyps live, which contribute to the support of this compound 

 being. Ellis and many other naturalists assert that they have the power of 

 locomotion, and swim in the sea; whilst others, and among them Lamarck 

 and Dr. Johnstone, are of the opposite opinion, observing, "that when placed 

 in a basin of sea-water, they remain in the same spot, and lie with the 

 same side up or down just as they have been put in." They emit a 

 beautiful phosphorescent light; and Linnaeus has placed them among the 

 wonderful productions of nature, speaking of them as "the phosphorescent 

 Sea-pens which cover the bottom of the ocean, and there cast so strong a 

 light, that it is easy to count the fishes and worms of various kinJs sporting 

 among them." 



We will next notice the Tubular Polypes, which difier from the rest in the 

 living substance being enclosed in horny or calcareous tubes which are either 

 simple or branched. Among these will be found the families of the Horny 

 Corals, the Organ Corals, and the Flant-liJ e Corals. In the first-named, 

 the polypary is in the form of a twisted or branched horny tube, which is 

 thin and semi-transparent. These tubes are sometimes simple, and sometimes 

 divided at the base; Ellis has co.Tipared them to "part of an oat-straw 

 with the joints cut off." There is one mode by which the species of this 

 family are increased, which I here mention, because no other zoophyte has 

 been observed to possess it. It arises from "free or motive buds," which 

 are produced from "the groups of little pedicles growing in the vicinity 

 of the tentacles, which support little roundish bodies often united together 

 in bunches, which, when mature, fall off like fruit from a tree, and are 

 dispersed to form new colonies." 



Next we come to the Organ Corals, so called because the Polypes dwell 

 in calcareous tubes, arranged in stages one above another, like the pipes of 

 an organ. These tubes are of a bright crimson hue, and the little creatures 

 which construct them are of a vivid grass green colour, so that they exhibit a 



