THE ■\VOXDEES OF THE SHORE. 31 



Royal Society his famous paper proving the 

 animal nature of corals, and followed it up the 

 year after by that " Essay toward a Natural 

 History of the Corallines, and other like Marine 

 Productions of the British Coasts," which forms 

 the groundwork of all our knowledge on the 

 subject to this day. The chapter in Dr. G. 

 Johnston's British Zoophytes, p. 407, or the 

 excellent little resume thereof in Dr. Lands- 

 borough's book on the same subject, is really a 

 saddening one, as one sees how loath were not 

 merely dreamers like Marsigli or Bonnet, but 

 sound-headed men like Pallas and Linnc, to give 

 up the old sense-bound fancy, that these corals 

 were vegetables, and tlieir i)olypes some sort of 

 living flowers. Yet after all there are excuses 

 for them. "Witliout our improved microscopes, 

 and while the sciences of comparative anatomy 

 and clicmislry were yet infantile, it was difllcult 

 to believe what was the truth ; and for tliis 

 .simple reason ; that, as usual, the truth, Avlicn 

 discovered, turned out far more starthiig and 

 prodigious than tlic dreams wliich men had 

 Iiastily substituted for it ; more strange tlian 

 Ovid's old story that the coral was soft under 

 the sea, and hardened by exposure to air ; tlian 



