154 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 



closely related to the jelly-fishes, as if one came 

 from the other; but just which is the parent and 

 which is the child, I will not attempt to say. 



There are plenty of things left in the sea yet, 

 which are waiting for more careful study. Per- 

 haps some of you will help read the puzzles. 



Large Corals require warmer water than that 

 which bathes our coast, and so we have no reefs 

 and no coral islands such as those which are so 

 numerous off the coast of Florida and through- 

 out the tropical parts of the Pacific Ocean. 



But we have true corals on our coast, most of 

 them no larger than a lady's thimble. There is 

 a very pretty red variety which you sometimes 

 find growing in a rock grotto when the tide is out. 



It looks like a little lump of red jelly, but when 

 you touch it, the animal shrinks down , leaving a lit- 

 tle hard, red, stony case, no bigger, perhaps, than a 

 pea. This case is made up of many blades of 

 limestone set like the spokes of a wheel. 



If you chip off a piece of the stone on which the 

 creature is growing, so as not to injure him, and 

 put him in water, you may be able to see him 

 come out of his stony home and open his arms, 

 like his near relative, the sea-anemone. 



In the same places you will be still more likely 

 to find Sponges; though our sponges, like our 



