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CHAPTEE YII. 



ZOANTHARIA, OB ANIMAL FLOWERS. 



" I saw the living pile ascend 

 The mausoleum of its architects, 

 Still dying upwards as their labour closed : 

 Slime the material, but the slime was turued 

 To adamant by their petrific touch." 



MONTGOMERY'S Pelican Island. 



THE zoophytes which constitute the class Zoantharia are quite great 

 personages. Some of them are eighteen or twenty inches long ; at 

 the same time, others scarcely exceed the eighth part of an inch in 

 length. They live in all seas, and seem to have existed through many 

 ages of the earth's history ; they appear at an early geological period, 

 and they have performed an important part in its formation ; we shall 

 see that, with great numhers of them, parts cut off from their bodies 

 continue to live and become new individuals. 



The name of Zoantharia was first given to the class by Gray ; but 

 here we give it a somewhat wider signification, embracing under it the 

 madrepores and starred stones of Lasueur, who is reminded of a field 

 enamelled with small flowers when he sees the little polyp of Forties 

 Astroides in full blow. " But it is only," says Johnston, " when 

 they lie with their upper disk expanded, and their tentacula dis- 

 played, that they solicit comparison with the boasts of Flora ; for, 

 when contracted, the polyp of the madrepores conceal themselves in 

 their calcareous cups, and the actiniae hide their beauty, assuming the 

 shape of an obtuse cone or hemisphere of a fleshy consistence, or 

 elongating themselves into a sort of flabby cylinder that indicates a 

 state of relaxation and indolent repose." 



These zoophytes are flesh-eaters, and consume quantities . truly 



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