TUBULARIA. 51 



presence in others, it is transient, and in some perishing with the tenant, 

 though regenerated along with a successor. 



The subject of this paragraph is therefore more nearly allied to the 

 Sertularia than to the Tubularia, or to any other established genus. But 

 while retaining the name, to avoid the perplexities involved by injudicious 

 changes, I shall leave it to the skilful framer of the Systema to settle its 

 true position. 



This is a splendid animal production — one of the most singular, beau- 

 tiful, and interesting among the boundless works of Nature. Sometimes 

 it resembles an aged tree, blighted amidst the war of the elements, or 

 withered by the deep corrosions of time ; sometimes it resembles a vigo- 

 rous flowering shrub in miniature, rising with a dark brown stem, and di- 

 verging into numerous boughs, branches, and twigs, terminating in so 

 many hydrae, wherein red and yellow intermixed afford a fine contrast to 

 the whole.— Plate VI. VII. X. 



The glowing colours of the one and the venerable aspect of the other, 

 their intricate parts, often laden with prolific fruit, and their numberless 

 tenants, all highly picturesque, are equally calculated to attract our admi- 

 ration to the creative power displayed throughout the universe, and to 

 sanction the character of this product as one of uncommon interest and 

 beauty. 



But from its appearing in infinite variety, and as it is shown from the 

 different synonyms bestowed that they cannot be uniformly applicable to 

 any one subject as a type of the rest, and as many doubts may remain 

 when they are concentrated under review, it is necessary to enter into a 

 more special detail. Nothing is readier to delude the naturalist than 

 beholding the earliest and the latest stages of such products, if deprived of 

 intermediate specimens to explain their progress and transition. 



A very fine specimen of the Tubularia Ramea was recovered from 

 among the rocks of a cavity in the bottom of the Firth of Forth, at about 

 150 feet from the surface. It had vegetated in such a direction, that it 

 was detached quite entire. 



Being transferred to a capacious vessel of sea-water, I found this Tu- 

 bularia rising seven inches and a half in height, by a stem about nine lines 



