CORALLINES. 139 



the sailors trim the sail and sing with a slow and monotonous tone a 

 song, the words of which improvise in a sort of psalmody the names 

 of the saints most revered among the seafaring Italian population. 



The lines are finally hrought home, tearing or breaking hlocks of 

 rock, sometimes of enormous size, which are hrought on board. The 

 cross is now placed on the side of the vessel, the lines are arranged on 

 the deck, and the crew occupy themselves in gathering the results of 

 their labour. The coral is gathered together, the branches of the 

 precious zoophyte are cleansed, and divested of the shells and other 

 parasitic products which accompany them; finally, the produce is 

 carried to and sold in the ports of Messina, Naples, Genoa, or Leghorn, 

 where the workers in jewellery purchase them. Behold, fair reader, 

 with what hard labour, fatigue, and peril, the elegant bijouterie with 

 which you are decked is torn from the deepest bed of the ocean ! 



III. THE PENNATULID^E, OR SEA-PEN. 



This curious family received from Cuvier the name of Swimming 

 Polypi, and from Lamarck that of Floating Polypi. The name of 

 Pennatulse, by which they are generally known, is taken from their 

 resemblance to a quill, penna. In the words of Lamarck, " It seems 

 as if Nature, in forming this composite animal, had wished to copy 

 the external form of a bird's feather." Our fishermen call it the cock's 

 comb, which is not inapt, but less expressive of its peculiarities. This 

 animal is " from two to four inches in length, of a uniform purplish- 

 red colour, except at the hip or base of the stalk, where it is pale 

 orange-yellow; the skin is thickish, very tough, and of a curious 

 structure, being composed of minute crystalline cylinders, densely 

 arranged in straight lines, and held together by a tenacious glutinous 

 matter, the cylinders being about six inches in diameter, in length 

 straight and even, or sometimes slightly curved, and of a red colour, 

 which communicates itself to the zoophyte." (Johnston.) The animals 

 by which it is formed constitute colonies, which, however, are only 

 attached to the rocks by an enlarged basis ; it appears to live generally 

 at the bottom of the sea ; its root, if we can use the term, buried in 

 the sands or mud ; its polypiferous portion sallying out into the water. 

 The agitation of the waves and the fishermen's nets often displace 

 these aggregates of creation, and then they float at various depths in 

 the bosom of the ocean. 



