ZOOPHYTES. 237 



a soil for the brilliant flower and the stately palm 

 tree, and soon thousands of living creatures are 

 creeping among its verdure ; and as the winds 

 play amid the "boughs, they stir the plumage, and 

 awake to song, the birds which have made them 

 their dwelling-place. Man conies and finds a 

 home of beauty, and among its lights and shadows 

 dwells on the coral isle, nor dreams that he owes 

 it to the humble architects whose labours were 

 directed by the will and guidance of the great 

 Creator. 



" The turf looks green where the breakers roll'd, 

 O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold ; 

 The sea-snatch'd isle is the home of men, 

 And mountains exult where the wave hath been." 



There are many, however, who are not aware 

 that on our own shores, delicate and beautiful 

 zoophytes, many of them like plants, are brought 

 up by the waves to their feet continually, and are 

 lying almost on every beech, or grow among our 

 rocks, or creep by entangling fibres or sand- 

 coloured patches, over our sea-weeds, or are 

 dredged up by the fishermen in multitudes. It is 

 true, that the corals of the British coast are few 

 and inconsiderable, but the skeleton of zoophytes 

 from which the polypes which made them have 

 died away, are among its commonest objects ; and 

 picked up often, and looking like plants, they 

 puzzle the inexperienced marine botanist, who 

 wonders that he cannot find their description in 

 his work on sea-weeds. Nor is it much more 

 than a century since, that men of science thought 

 these zoophytes were vegetables, and led by their 

 plant-like appearance, their fixed place of growth, 

 the discs or tubular fibres which constitute their 



