8 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
British seas, showing that, under Providence, they had played 
no inferior part in the olden times in the preparation of what 
was to gratify the taste and to contribute to the comfort and 
happiness of the inhabitants of our land in the present day. 
But their place in our seas is now occupied by those tinier 
tribes which we are to attempt to describe; zoophytes, as 
respectable in size and as indefatigable and efficient as the 
antique, are even now carrying on their mighty operations in 
the great Pacific Ocean. Our recent British zoophytes have 
even now, in the Mediterranean Sea, many kindred tribes, 
which afford employment to some thousands of active seamen 
in collecting their beautiful works, as well as scope for the 
taste and industry of many neat-handed artificers ashore, by 
forming the coral into toys for children, as well as beautiful 
ornaments for the gay and affluent. Mediterranean corals 
constitute an article of commerce, and are diligently sought 
for by persons who fit out vessels for the purpose. They 
are generally branched in the form of shrubs, and they are 
broken off from the rocks to which they adhere by long 
hooked poles. When’a crop of corals has been obtained 
from a habitat, they who are engaged in the trade do not 
visit the same place again for about a dozen years, treating 
the corals as they would the wood of a forest by land. 
