THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 71 



In the countries where they abound, these living reef- 

 builders, though often mischievous, as some slight compen- 

 sation, render certain services to man. Their structures 

 sometimes form thick and very compact layers, which are 

 made use of as building stone. Forskal, who explored the 

 shores of the Red Sea, says that the inhabitants of Suez and 

 Djeddah carry off masses of madrepore as much as twenty- 

 five feet long, and that they build all their houses with 

 them. My learned friend, P. E. Botta, told me that in 

 certain villages in the Sandwich Islands the dwellings are 

 built solely of such materials. 



Thus man constructs his abodes with the handiwork of 

 these petty architects, the Polypi. 



Each species has its own separate mission and form. 

 Near our reef-builders live other polyps, which, instead of 

 encrusting the rocks, display themselves on their surface 

 like a vegetable forest, the petrified branches of which 

 brave the fury of the billows. Some have so exactly the 

 same physiognomy as our plants, that the old botanists 

 without hesitation classed them among the productions of 

 their domain. Others spread out in vast cup-shaped forms, 

 one rising above the other ; as may be seen in the " Car 

 of Neptune," the ruler of the seas. 



proofs to be revealed, if that were necessary, of one unique will, one omnipotence, 

 which created, and which now preserves, the ' great whole ' in all its beauty and 

 perfection." 



