FLUSTRA FOLIACEA. 



Among the common productions of sandy shores se- 

 veral species of Zoophytes present themselves, generally 

 in a dead state, the fleshy parts having wholly disap- 

 peared, leaving merely the skeleton or skin behind. 

 The skeletons often resemble sea-weeds, both in the 

 plant-like forms they assume, and in bearing along the 

 branches little membranous sacs, which look like mi- 

 nute flowers or seed-vessels, and are, indeed, organs of a 

 similar nature, being the ovaries in which the germs of 

 the young Polypes are contained. From sea-weeds the 

 skeletons in question may always be known by their 

 horny, or bony texture, and their generally pale, testa- 

 ceous colour. There is but one group of sea-plants, the 

 jointed corallines, which so far resemble some of them in 

 being hard, and indeed stony in substance, as to lead to 

 their being commonly confounded even by naturalists, 

 with skeletons of Zoophytes. 

 But these are rock-plants, 

 which we shall speak of in 

 another chapter. Most of the 

 Zoophytes, also, are natives 

 of rocky places, or of shingly 

 ground, such as oyster-beds, 

 beyond the reach of the 

 tide. And it is only the spe- 

 cies which are accidentally 

 thrown up by the waves 

 which we meet with on 

 strands. Of these, one of 

 the most common is Flustra foliacea, represented in 

 the annexed cut, a much branched species, of a papery 



