366 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
arborescent structure, and enables it to rise to a height of 
several feet, or even, if we are to credit the Norway fishermen, 
to rival our forest-trees in magnitude. This thev conclude to 
be the case from their nets being sometimes entangled on the 
trunk or stem of the Primnoa lepadifera, as this large species 
of gorgon is called, when the united strength of several men is 
unable to free the nets. ‘* They have even assured me,” says 
Sir A. Capell de Brooke, “ that the corals grcw to the height of 
fifty or sixty feet, as they judge from the following circumstance, 
which seems clear and simple. The lines for tue ccu-fish, which 
is found in the greatest plenty where the primnoa grows, are 
set in very deep water at the distance of about six feet from the 
bottom, and in the parts where it is flat and level, which they 
can tell from their soundings. On drawing up the lines at the 
distance of forty, fifty, or sixty feet, and soraetimes even more 
from the bottom, they get entangled with some of the upper 
parts or branches of the gorgon, which are thus torn off, and 
hence they reasonably conclude that the animal rises to this 
height.” 
The Gorgonidz either branch away irregularly like shrubs, 
or else their branches inosculate and form a kind of net or fan, 
as in the Flabellum Veneris, a beautiful Indian species, which 
some naturalist of more than usual fancy has appropriated to 
the use of Venus. 
Four British species of Gorgonia are recorded. G. verrucosa, 
the commonest of these, abounds in deep water along the whole 
of the south coast of England. It is more than twelve inches 
in height, and fifteen or seventeen in breadth, and expands 
laterally in numerous cylindrical and warty branches. It is 
somewhat fan-shaped, but does not form a continuous network. 
Its coral has a dense black axis, with a snow-white pith in the 
centre, and is covered, while living, with a flesh-coloured crust. 
The flexible corneous stem of the Gorgonias enables them to 
bend beneath the passing current, and thus prevents their 
long and slender ramifications from breaking, while the hard 
calcareous branches of the valuable red coral (Coralliwm 
mobile) are sufficiently short and strong to resist the violence 
of the sea. This beautiful marine production, though also 
occurring in the Ethiopic Ocean and abont Cape Negro, is 
chiefly found in the Mediterranean, on the shores of Provence, 
