118 GLAUCUS; OR, 
hovering from place to place upon delicate ciliz, 
till, having sown its wild oats, it settled down in 
life, built itself a good stone house, and became 
a landowner, or rather a glebe adscriptus, for ever 
and a day. Mysterious destiny !—yet not so mys- 
terious as that of the free medusoid young of every 
polype and coral, which ends as a rooted tree of 
horn or stone, and seems to the eye of sensuous 
fancy to have literally degenerated into a vegetable. 
Of them you must read for yourself in Mr. 
Gosse’s book; in the meanwhile he shall tell you 
something of the beautiful Madrepores themselves. 
His description,! by far the best yet published, 
should be read in full; we must content ourselves 
with extracts. 
“Doubtless you are familiar with the stony ske- 
leton of our Madrepore, as it appears in museums. 
It consists of a number of thin calcareous plates 
standing up edgewise, and arranged in a radiating 
manner round a low centre. A little below the 
margin their individuality is lost in the deposition 
1 A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast, p. 110. 
