10 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
growing on Algse probably not more than two years old, 
the growth of the zoophyte must be pretty rapid. The 
growth of Flustra foliacea is often very considerable on 
Laminaria evideutly only a year old. We have seen the 
silvery web overspreading the frond of a Laminaria several 
feet in extent, though the plant was not in all likelihood 
more than two years old. Though the growth, then, of 
corals in the Pacific may not be so rapid as even the Me- 
diterranean corals, yet from analogy we are disposed to 
conclude that their growth is by no means so slow as some 
imagine. | 
But slow or not slow, as coral reefs and coral islands are 
chiefly the work of marine artificers which are nearly allied 
in their nature to our British Zoophytes, which we mean 
to describe, and as their operations are carried on much in 
the same manner, we are paving the way for the study of 
the less, when we turn our attention for a little to the 
greater. It is like applying the magnifying glass to what is 
- minute when we become better acquainted with the larger 
sized relatives. And certainly there is scarcely anything in 
the whole range of Natural History more deserving of our 
attention, or better fitted to fill us with wonder and. admira- 
tion, than when we see that the great Creator can, by means 
