HOW CORAL GROWS. 149 



Q limited number of the community." Fancy millions of 

 stomachs fed from one mouth. 



Agassiz again asserts that some species of coral grows by 

 budding. This oirght to have been a capital argument against 

 insect formation, but he fails to see it, and moreover states : 

 mists never look upon a tree as a simple individual, but 

 an aggregate of individuals growing upon the same foundation, 

 and remaining attached to the parent stock." If assertions 

 like these are good for anything, there is no saying where they 

 might end, for a man may, with as much reason, be said to be 

 composed of an aggregate of individuals also. 



Agassiz founds a curious argument with coral insects, 

 against Darwin's development of species, which is worth 

 noting. In tracing the formation and growth of coral reefs 

 in Florida, he has shown that eight thousand years are required 

 to raise one of these reef's, or walls, from its foundation to the 

 surface of the ocean, and as there are four wall reefs round the 

 southern extremity of Florida, the first of these must be thirty 

 thousand years old; "and yet all of them are built by the 

 same identical species." " Tnese facts then," says he, " furnish 

 as direct evidence as we can obtain in any branch of physical 

 inquiry, that some at least of the species of animals now exist- 

 ing, have been living over thirty thousand years, and have not 

 undergone the slightest change during the whole of that 

 period." But as we have shown the insects cannot make these 

 reefs, or anything else, Darwin is safe enough yet, as far 

 as that argument is concerned. 



Darwin himself, has some curious theories regarding coral 

 insects, and their work, from which he draws conclusions 



