LYTHOPHYTES AND SPONGES. 199 



each polypus with pincers from its shell, and 

 plunged each separately into small crystal vases, 

 filled with spirit of wine mixed with water. By 

 this means the animal was preserved entire, with- 

 out having time to contract itself, and he thus 

 perceived a variety of kinds, almost equal to that 

 variety of productions which these little animals 

 are seen to form. He has been thus able to per- 

 ceive and describe fifty different kinds, each of 

 which is seen to possess its own peculiar mode of 

 construction, and to form a coraline that none of 

 the rest can imitate. It is true, indeed, that on 

 every coraline substance there are a number of 

 polypi found, no way resembling those wjiich are 

 the erecters of the building ; these may be called 

 a vagabond race of reptiles, that are only in- 

 truders upon the labours of others, and that take 

 possession of habitations, which they have neither 

 art nor power to build for themselves. But, in 

 general, the same difference that subsists between 

 the honey-comb of the bee and the paper-like 

 cells of the wasp, subsists between the different 

 habitations of the coral-making polypi. 



With regard to the various forms of these sub- 

 stances, they have obtained different names, from 

 the nature of the animal that produced them, or 

 the likeness they bear to some well-known object, 

 such as coralines, fungi-madrepores, sponges, as- 

 troites, and keratophytes. Though these differ 

 extremely in their outward appearances, yet they 

 are all formed in the same manner by reptiles of 

 various kinds and nature. When examined che- 

 mically, they all discover the marks of animal 



