CHAPTER VI. 



CORALLINES. 



THE poet Crabbe, fond of visiting the sea shore, 

 has said : 



" Involved in sea- wrack, here you find a race, 

 Which science doubting, knows not where to place; 

 On shell or stone is dropp'd the embryo seed, 

 And quickly vegetates a vital breed." 



A child, for example, picks up what is un- 

 hesitatingly pronounced a piece of sea-weed, and if 

 it have not some striking quality in form or colour, 

 it is hastily, and perhaps contemptuously, thrown 

 away. And yet that object may not be the sea- 

 weed which stands on one of the borders of the 

 vegetable world ; on the contrary, it may prove, 

 when duly examined, the uninhabited tenement of 

 numerous animals which have recently quitted it. 

 A large number of these beings were called zoophytes 

 by the older naturalists ; the name is of Greek 

 derivation, signifying animal plants, and a difficulty 

 was long felt in assigning to them their proper 

 place among the works of God. Their actual 

 position being now decided, they may be accurately 

 styled " plant-like animals." The distinctive name 

 given to one of these creatures is polypus, polype, 



