CORAL AND CORAL REEFS 399 



severe fit of indigestion. But this is by no means the 

 case in the sea anemone, because when digestive difficulties 

 of this kind arise he gets out of them by splitting himself 

 in two ; and then each half builds itself up into a fresh 

 creature, and you have two polypes where there was 

 previously one, and the bone which stuck in the way lying 

 between them ! Not only can these creatures multiply 

 in this fashion, but they can multiply by buds. A bud 

 will grow out of the side of the body (I am not speaking 

 of the common sea anemone, but of allied creatures) just 

 like the bud of a plant, and that will fashion itself into a 

 creature like the parent. There are some of them in which 

 these buds remain connected together, and you will soon 

 see what would be the result of that. If I make a bud 

 grow out here, and another on the opposite side, and each 

 fashions itself into a new polype, the practical effect will be 

 that before long you will see a single polype converted into 

 a sort of tree or bush of polypes. And these will all remain 

 associated together, like a kind of co-operative store, which 

 is a thing I believe you understand very well here, each 

 mouth will help to feed the body and each part of the body 

 help to support the multifarious mouths. I think that is as 

 good an example of a zoological co-operative store as you 

 can well have. Such are these wonderful creatures. But 

 they are capable not only of multiplying in this way, but in 

 other ways, by having a more ordinary and regular kind of 

 offspring. Little eggs are produced in the bodies of these 

 creatures, and those eggs are hatched and the young are 

 passed out by the way of the mouth, and they go swimming 

 about as little oval bodies covered with a very curious kind 

 of hairlike processes. Each of these processes is capable 

 of striking the water like an oar ; and the consequence is 

 that the young creature is propelled through the water. So 

 that you have the young polype floating about in this 

 fashion, covered by its vibratile cilia, as these long filaments, 

 which are capable of vibration, are termed. And thus, al- 

 though the polype itself may be a fixed creature unable to 

 move about, it is able to spread its offspring over great areas. 

 For these creatures not only propel themselves, but while 

 swimming about in the sea for many hours, or perhaps days, 

 it will be obvious that they must be carried hither and thither 

 by the currents of the sea, which not unfrequently move at 

 the rate of one or two miles an hour. Thus, in the course of 

 a few days, the offspring of this stationary creature may be 



