PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. 



these flower-like animals, and are able to enjoy science 

 when well set forth by a genial author. 



Justice to France requires that these allusions to the science 

 of polyps in Great Britain should be followed by a mention 

 of the eminent names of Milne Edwards and Jules Haimr, 

 of Paris, chief among the makers of the science of polyp- 

 corals ; and by a reference also to the fact that France, 

 through Peysonxel, was ahead in establishing by investigation 

 the animal nature of corals, this observer proving his point 

 at Marseilles, in 1723, on specimens of the very species that 

 had just before been declared to be flowering plants by 

 Marsigli, and afterward confirming his results by thirty years 

 of study among the reef-corals of Guadaloupe. It should be 

 added, also, that the rest of P'.urope has made large contribu- 

 tions to the science, through Pallas, Esper, Ehrenberg, and 

 other later investigators. If France, in past times, has taken 

 the lead, she has had the advantage of a sea-coast of more 

 than a thousand miles on the ocean, and of a long line also on 

 the warmer and more prolific Mediterranean. 



The discovery of deep-sea corals by recent dredging expedi- 

 tions has opened up a new field for coral investigations, no 

 less important to (icology than to Zoology. But while so 

 much attention has been absorbed in this direction, it should 

 be remembered that the interest of the old coral-fields is far 

 from exhausted, and that one great and most important sub- 

 ject, the rate of growth of corals, and of the increase of 

 reefs, waits for investigators. 



James D. Dana. 



New Haven, Conn., March i, 1872. 



