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bo 
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A. EF. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands; Coral Reefs. 
lips translucent gray with white lines. Ccenenchyma and column 
translucent olive-brown, usually tinged with emerald-green. 
Sometimes emerald-green is the prevailing color, varied with laven- 
der and flake-white, often in symmetrical patterns ; in other speci- 
mens lavender or yellow may be the dominant color, scarcely two 
being alike. Some pale yellow and almost albino specimens were 
taken. In full expansion this coral and the allied species of 
Mussa look like clusters of bright colored sea-anemones, for the 
soft upper body can rise half an inch or more above the coral and 
78 
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OX (2 SRLO Z4yps)1) ‘ Ws BF 6Z 
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Figure 78.—Mussa fragilis, a calicle with a polyp partly expanded, slightly 
enlarged. Sketched from life by the author. 
Figure 78a.—The same, one of the isolated polyps fully expanded, about nat. 
size, with a diagrammatic section of the coral to show the relations of 
the parts; e, epitheca; c, costz ; en, endotheca ; 0, columella; s, s, septa; 
w, wall. Drawn from life by the author. 
expand a fine wreath of large tapering tentacles, 48 or more in 
number, often entirely concealing the coral beneath the fleshy mem- 
branes. (Fig. 78a.) When it contracts the soft upper-bodies, disk, 
and tentacles sink down into the calicles, below the bounding rims, 
and in full contraction the tentacles are withdrawn out of sight, 
though often visible in partial expansion. (Plate xxxi, fig. 1.) At 
such times the fleshy column walls, which cover the ridges and outer 
parts of the coral, are curiously wrinkled and verrucose over the 
denticles, and in that state the form of the coral can usually be seen 
through the translucent tissues. 
Ordinary specimens are 3 to 4 inches in diameter, but in favorable 
localities it often forms hemispherical masses 6 inches or more in 
diameter and 4 to 5 inches thick. 
