THE AVOXDERS OF THE SHORE. 137 



On that leg grows, amid anotbei- copse of the 

 gray polypes, a delicate straw-colored Sertularia, 

 branch on branch of tiny double combs, each 

 tooth of the comb being a tube containing a 

 living flower ; on another leg another Sertularia, 

 coarser, but still beautiful ; and round it again 

 has trained itself, parasitic on the parasite, plant 

 upon plant of glass ivy, bearing crystal bells,* 

 each of which, too, protrudes its living flower ; on 

 another leg is a fresh species, like a little heather- 

 bush of whitest ivory ,t and every needle leaf a 

 polype cell — let us stop before the imagination 

 grows dizzy witli the contemplation of those 

 myriads of beautiful atomies. And what is their 

 use ? Each living flower, each polype mouth is 

 feeding fast, sweeping into itself, by the perpetual 

 currents caused by the delicate fringes upon its 

 rays, (so minute these last, that tlieir motion 

 only betrays their presence,) each tiniest atom of 

 decaying matter in the surrounding water, to 

 convert it, by Fome wondrous alchemy, into fresh 

 cells and buds, and rillier build up a fresli branch 

 in their thousand-tenanted tree, or form an egg- 

 cell, from whence, when ripe, may issue, not a 

 fixed zoophyte, but a free swimming animal. 



* Ciiwiiniuhirid ln'.rt/r(t. t Ciiiidin dinmcu. 



