VIRGULARIA. PA i | 
Nothing enables us to indulge the slightest conjecture of 
its use. We can hardly allow its protective utility, for it 
seems scarcely calculated for supporting itself.’ In other 
respects there are mysteries in this beautiful creature, which 
the most acute naturalists have been unable to fathom. 
“Hach organ,” says Sir J. G. Dalyell, “of this remarkable 
object, has a distinct action, free of all the other parts. 
Hach lobe, each hydra, each of the pectinate tentacula, and 
each of their prongs, can move at will, while the whole of 
the rest of the zoophyte is quiescent. Therefore, in a spe- 
cimen with the bone extending eighteen inches, above a 
million of separate fleshy parts are under the common con- 
trol of the zoophyte.” ‘ But how this control is exercised, 
or how its effect is imparted, is not easily explamed. The 
flesh of the Virgularia enjoys some peculiar power of wind- 
ing as a spiral around the central bone, while thousands of 
hydree, independent so far as to testify individual action, 
are incorporated with it. What a marvellous work of the 
creation !”? 
‘These are thy glorious works, Parent of Good, 
Almighty! Thine this universal frame, 
Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then ! 
Unspeakable, who sitt’st above these heavens, 
To us invisible, or dimly seen 
