212 ZOOPHYTES. 



similar instances recorded, our embarassments might be relieved : for more 

 frequent, easier, and stricter investigation being admitted, doubtless such 

 a train of discovery, and thence the solution of what are to us the most 

 abstruse problems, would follow. 



Thus let us patiently persist in our enquiries after the purposes of 

 Nature. 



§ 1. Sertularia (Campanularia) dichotoma. — Sea Thread Coral- 

 line. — Plate XLI. — The Sea Thread Coralline is one of the most delicate, 

 elegant, and interesting, among the numerous race of arborescent zoo- 

 phytes, which none of the names hitherto bestowed on it are in the least 

 calculated to express. According to Pallas, it rises a foot in height, whence 

 the species is distinguished by him as Sertularia longissiina. But none of 

 my specimens have exceeded nine inches. Much allowance must be made 

 for the situation of all such products : nor, on comparing certain apparent 

 discrepancies among those occumng to me, do I think that I have either 

 had the finer specimens, in their greatest luxuriance, or that I am yet en- 

 abled to ascertain what are the existing varieties. 



This zoophyte rises erect by a dark brown tubular stem, extremely 

 slender, being truly no thicker than a silken thread, but tough and elastic. 

 The whole skeleton is waved — the stem less sensibly, owing to its greater 

 length ; the branches, by about 30 or 40 of which it is environed, are more 

 decidedly so. Here the reader may preserve in recollection, that such 

 products lose much of their original character, simply by increment. Hence, 

 on ascending to the nascent state, it is impracticable to determine what 

 the early zoophyte shall be, unless having seen the parent. Twigs rise 

 from the convexities of the branches of this Sertularia, which, instead of 

 termination by a tubular or cylindrical extremity, dilate as a bell of incon- 

 ceivable transparence and tenuity. A specimen, eight or nine inches high, 

 might be covered by a hollow cone, four inches wide towards the base. — 

 PI. XLI. fig. 1. 



The skeleton is- occupied, as usual, by an internal pith, terminating 

 at the origin of the bell by the evolution of the hydra ; for wherever the 



