SOME ANIMAL ARCHITECTS. 135 



simple corals. The branch of red coral and the vast majority 

 of reef-building and other corals exhibit, however, the true 

 characteristics of their race, in that they are of compound 

 nature, and form, in the reef-building corals, by a process of 

 continuous and connected growth, masses of immense size 

 and extent. Indeed, it is this feature of constant and 

 connected production which gives to these animals their 

 characteristic power of forming huge monuments of stable 

 and enduring kind on the surface of the earth. It may 

 appear somewhat strange to speak of budding in connection 



FIG. 14. Corals. A, Dcndrophyllia, one of the "tree corals;" B, Carophyllia, 

 the "cup coral." 



with the animal form. The process, however, not only 

 occurs in the class of coral-polypes, but is represented in 

 the nearly allied zoophytes, and in several other groups of 

 animals. The history of a great mass of coral may be thus 

 traced from its earliest stage, when an egg, liberated from 

 some member of an already-formed colony, settled down, 

 attached itself, and produced a single anemone-like polype. 

 This solitary polype next began to bud, and so produced a 

 series of new and connected beings ; and if we suppose 

 the budding process to be in turn repeated by each member 

 of the colony, we can readily understand how the compound 

 organism should attain in due time a growth of almost un- 

 limited extent. Many corals also provide for their increase 



