ation from the other fossil zoophytes which we have noticed, in its 

 not possessing a footstalk or pedicle, by which it could have been at- 

 tached, like them, to any other substance. A little attention, how- 

 ever, to the organization of this animal mass, will, I think, discover 

 that such a structure has been here employed, as was well calculated 

 to afford a very efficient substitute for the pedicle, with which we 

 have seen that the alcyonia have been furnished. It has appeared, 

 in the course of our inquiries, that the animals of the alcyonic kind 

 are destined to derive their sustenance from the various contents of 

 the sea water, a frequent renewal of which is procured by the power 

 which they possess of alternately drawing it into, and ejecting it from, 

 certain cavities in the substance which they animate. This process must 

 of necessity be effected by the operation of muscular fibres, disposed 

 in such directions as are best calculated to produce the desired effect. 

 But that these muscular parts may act with a greater degree of force 

 and energy, it is necessary that they should be attached, at one of 

 their terminations, to a fixed point; towards which, the parts at- 

 tached to their other termination, may be drawn by their contraction. 

 Hence we find, that all the alcyonia we have hitherto described have 

 been fixed to some other substance, by a pedicle, not much unlike, 

 in its appearance, to the root of a shrub. 



A view of the arrangement of the tubuli or fibres, in the particular 

 species now under our examination, will instruct us in the mode 

 which has been employed, in this animal, to establish a fixed point from 

 which the fibres might act; and at the same time, to allow the power 

 of removal from one place to another. Supposing the animal laid 

 on its inferior surface, on any substance wet with the sea water, a 

 retraction upwards of the fibres, about the centre of that surface, 

 would, of course, produce a cavity, and a vacuum between that sur- 

 face and the surface of the body on which the alcyonium was placed ; 

 in the same manner as it is produced by pulling the string in the centre of 

 the leathern suckers of children. Thus would be occasioned so strong; 



