52 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



a mouth surrounded by tentacles or feelers, used for 

 purposes of food getting. The mouth leads directly 

 into the simple body ; and the body, in its turn, 

 opens below into the branch on which it is borne. 

 Stem and branches are, in fact, hollow, and thus form 

 a means of communication between all the units of 

 the colony. 



Our sea- fir is a compound or colonial animal, which 

 numbers its members by the hundred. It is some- 

 thing more, however. It appears before us as a 

 typical example of a co-operative society. For the 

 colony is nourished, not by the labour of one, but by 

 the work of all its members. Each little animal unit 

 captures food and digests it, and then delivers this 

 nutriment over to the general store or common fund, 

 which is circulating always through the hollow stem 

 and branches of the colony. From this common store 

 each unit in turn draws its own supply. 



There is perfect co-operation witnessed here. No 

 wrangling and quarrelling, such as intervene in higher 

 societies, exist. Lower life knows nothing of the 

 overweening ambition of the twos or threes over the 

 aims of the mass. There is no question or claim 

 of precedence in the sea-fir democracy. All is har- 

 mony, equality, fraternity here ; and the currents of 

 sea-fir life roll onwards undisturbed by the passions 

 of higher existence. 



You are curious to know how this colony has come 

 to be what it is. The story is a simple one. Look 

 at fig. 17, and note the capsule marked b, which re- 

 presents a growth that can be seen to appear in 

 numbers on the branches. These are not ordinary 

 cups or cells. They do not shelter ordinary units of 

 the society. They are the cradles of the colony, and 



