/ 



Corallinea.'] melobesia. 281 



2. Melobesia agaricipormis^ Lam. 



See Dr. Johnston's ' History of Britisli Sponges and 

 Corallines/ page 24 i^ and Professor Harvey's ' Phycologia 

 Britannica/ PL lxxiii. 



the loose coral, — for tlie first rude wave might lay it naked and bare : it 

 becomes a marine mason, and builds a place of abode ; it chooses to dwell in 

 a coral grotto, but in constructing this grotto it shows that it is not only a 

 mason, but a rope-spinner, and a tapestry -weaver, and a plasterer. Were it 

 merely a mason, it would be no easy matter to cause the polymorphous coral 

 to cohere. Cordage, then, is necessary to bind together the angular frag- 

 ments of the coral ; and this cordage it spins, but its mode of spinning it is 

 one of the secrets of the deep. Somehow or another, though it has no hands, 

 it contrives to intertwine this yarn which it foims, among the numerous bits 

 of coral, so as fii'mly to bind a handful! of it together. Externally, this habi- 

 tation is rough, and therefore better fitted to elude or to ward ofi" enemies ; 

 but, though rough externally, all is smooth and lubricous within, for the yarn 

 is woven into a lining of tapestry, and the interstices are filled up with fine 

 slime, so that it is smooth plaster- work, not unlike the patent Tntonaco of my 

 ingenious friend, ]\Irs. Marshall. Not being intended, however, Uke her 

 valuable composition, to keep out damp, or to bid defiance to fire, while the 

 intertwining cordage keeps the coral walls together, the fine tapestry, mixed 

 with smooth and soft plaster, covers all asperities, so that there is nothing to 

 injure the delicate fringed appendages of the enclosed animal. Tapestry, as a 

 covering for walls, was once the proud and costly ornament of regal apart- 

 ments ; but ancient though the art was, I shall answer for it that our little 

 marine artizan took no hint from the Gobelin^ or froni the workmen of 

 Arras, or from those of Athens, or even from the earliest tapissiers of the 

 East. I doubt not that from the time that Noah's Ark rested on the moun- 

 tain of Ararat, the forefathers of these beautiful little Limas have been 



