]12 THE MADREPOEE. 



the dry skeleton. Nor would any alteration be pre- 

 sently manifest on again putting it into sea-water. 

 But let it recover its confidence, its equanimity ; then 

 you will see a pellucid gelatinous flesh emerging from 

 between the plates, little exqusitely formed and 

 coloured tentacles fringing the sides of the cup- 

 shaped cavity, across which stretches the oral disk 

 marked with a star of some rich and brilliant colour, 

 surrounding the central mouth, a slit with white 

 crenated lips, like the orifice of one of those 

 elegant cowry shells that we put upon our mantel- 

 pieces. 



The animated part of the zoophyte will some- 

 times rise to the height of an inch above the level of 

 the plates, exclusive of the tentacles, which can be 

 extended to almost half an inch more. Its resem- 

 blance to an Actinia is then seen to be as great in 

 appearance as in structure, though the diversity, in- 

 dependent of the stony base, is sufficient to prevent 

 your confounding one with the other. Like the Sea 

 Anemone, our Madrepore has the power of filling its 

 body and tentacles with water from without, a process 

 which when carried to an extreme, as it often is, espe- 

 cially when the animal is expecting food, or after it 

 has received it, imparts to the tissues a charming 

 translucency, a sort of filmy cloudiness to the eye, as 

 if we were looking on the ghost of a zoophyte, instead 

 of real solid substance. (See fig. 1.) 



How far down on the outside the gelatinous en- 

 velope extends, whether indeed it surrounds the 

 whole stony deposition, even passing between the 

 base and the rock, close as the contact seems, I can- 



