LLZ 
CEA Bae hoe L. 
SEA-PENS. 
WE well may be interested as we survey the occupants of another 
element, a world of life so different from our own, and yet the 
inhabitants of that world are seen to pass through all the phases of 
life, exhibiting peculiar habits, and showing signs of joy and sorrow. 
All the marine zoophytes, without exception, ought to besthe 
object of our study and of our admiration , but amongst them all 
certainly the most wonderful is the Sea-Pen, or Pennatula. This 
polypier loves the open sea, and seldom approaches the shore ; thus 
it is free, and not fixed, like the corals. Its organisation is complex, 
but in shape something like a pen. This animal association has an 
axis, or part common to all, and a species of barbs which grow out 
of it, which are inhabited by individual polypes. The axis is 
- composed of two parts; the anterior part, to which are attached 
the barbs, and the posterior, which is naked. The first part is 
generally straight and somewhat flattened, the second has some 
resembiance to an elongated heart; at its obtuse end there is a 
cavity, which some naturalists have mistaken for the mouth. In the 
very centre of the polypier is a hard, flat, greyish stem, of a limy 
nature, which is covered by a fleshy and contractile tissue. This 
stem is common to the whole colony. 
The polypes, in the genus Pennatula, are arranged in transverse 
rows upon the outer and inner edge ; they are fleshy and white, 
and are provided with eight tentacule, which are ciliated on one 
edge; the mouth is angular, and surrounded by the tentaculz. 
At certain times this aggregation of life inflates itself by drinking 
in water; and when it throws out the liquid its form collapses. 
The barbs of this animated feather are larger in the middle 
than at the extremities. They look like wings on each side of 
