POLYPES. 183 



dazzling as the purple of the ancients. Many of 

 these beings are like a tree which winter has 

 stripped of its leaves, but which the spring 

 adorns with new flowers, and they strike the 

 beholder by the eclat of petal-like animals, with 

 which their branches are covered from the base 

 to the extremity. 



Captain Beechey has given a most interesting 

 account of the proceeding and progress of these 

 animals in erecting these mighty works, and of 

 the manner in which the sea forms ridges, when 

 the animals have carried their work as high as 

 they can : upon these at length a soil is formed 

 beyond the reach of its waves; a vegetation next 

 commences, in time plants and trees spring up, 

 animals arrive, and man himself finds it a con- 

 venient residence. His account is too long to 

 copy, I must therefore refer the reader to it, but 

 I must give here his statement of some proceed- 

 ings of these animals, which have a bearing upon 

 the principal design of the present work, and 

 seem to indicate an instinctive sagacity in the 

 polypes far above their rank in the animal king- 

 dom, and quite inconsistent with their organiza- 

 tion. 



Speaking of Ducies Island, a formation of the 

 coral animals, he describes it as taking the shape 

 of a truncated cone with the face downwards, the 

 form best calculated to resist the action of the 

 ocean, and then proceeds to say, " The north- 



