GORGONIA. 21 
the polypidom was attached to the under only by the limber 
network, which could not long have withstood the tide,— 
since they could not splice the broken main-mast, the little 
artificers did what was about as well-fitted to answer their 
purpose. Lillis states, “I have now before me specimens 
which prove the horny circles which surround and compose 
the stem and branches to be the work of animals; one par- 
ticularly, of the Keratophyta, or Sea-fans, called by the cele- 
brated Linnzeus Flabellum Veneris, which, by some accident, 
has had one of the main stems, belonging to the branches, 
broke quite across. But the broken parts have been kept 
near to one another by the small reticulated side-branches. 
The animals, in the progress of their tubes upwards from 
the trunk, as soon as they met with this obstruction of the 
broken stem, turned off to one side, and proceeding along 
the reticulated branches, covered over the vacant spaces 
with their horny and calcareous matter; after this they 
made a short turn, to gain the broken end of the upper 
part of the stem of this branch, and from thence they con- 
tinued their progress along towards the finer ramifications 
as usual.” ‘In the same sea-fan,” he adds, “there is 
another remarkable instance of the animals forming the 
horny part of the branches. This specimen appears to have 
