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LOWER FORMS OF MARINE LIFE 



Among the anemones is the red Actinia equina, which occurs in European 

 seas in great variety of colour. It lives at depths varying from tide-range to 

 20 fathoms, and attains a breadth of 2f inches. Another abundant European 

 species, Actinoloba dianthus, attains 6 inches in height and nearly 3 inches in 

 breadth, and lives at a depth of from 1 to 16 fathoms. 



The reef-building corals of the warmer seas are included in the same group 

 as the anemones, though their tentacles are not always in sixes. To the other 

 group, in which the tentacles invariably number eight, belongs the red coral of 

 commerce (Corallium rubrum). In this the stock, which may reach a height of 

 12 inches, is of a branching type, and has a rose-coloured or more or less whitish, 

 calcareous skeleton and a red or orange crust in which are the small white polyps. 

 This coral lives in the Mediterranean, and in the Atlantic along the north-west 

 coast of Africa, and the coasts of the Cape Verde Islands, being generally found at 

 a depth of from 40 to 100 fathoms attached to the under side of overhanging rocks. 



RED COKAL. 



