130 THE WORLDS LUMBER ROOM. 



Both animals consist of a disk and bag. The former, 

 which is often brightly and beautifully coloured, is set round 

 with fringed rays ; these are in reality hollow tubes, which 

 close over all the prey brought within their reach, and convey 

 it to the mouth, which is placed in the centre of the disk, the 

 stomach being contained in the bag beneath. Thus far the 

 anemone and the coral-polyp are alike, though the one may 

 be many times larger than the other ; but if the anemone's 

 bag were cut across, we should see that it was composed of 

 several divisions, and it would present much the same 

 appearance as an orange or lemon when similarly cut. In 

 the anemone, as in the lemon, these partitions are formed 

 by a skin or membrane, but in the coral-polyp they are 

 hard and solid, and consist of carbonate of lime. 



Some corals are, to all appearance, true sea-anemones, 

 their stony skeletons being so completely hidden as to be un- 

 suspected by those not in the secret ; but there are others 

 which, instead of living singly as these do, grow together in 

 groups of thousands and hundreds of thousands, each tiny 

 individual having its own flower-like disk, mouth, and 

 stomach, but being at the same time as closely united with 

 the rest as the twig is with the tree.* The whole mass is 

 indeed one, but fed by many mouths, and the various in- 

 dividuals bud, and branch, and grow in such a truly plant- 

 like way that their name of zoophytes (animal-plants) is most 

 * The red coral grows up in a sort of branched stem, every branch being 

 terminated by an open-mouthed polyp. The skeleton, which belongs to the 

 whole colony in common, is covered by a soft body by which it is deposited. 

 In the white coral, besides the common skeleton, there is a special one for 

 each individual. This is shaped like a cup and divided by radiating parti- 

 tions, and the cups are united into a common branch Huxley. 



