ZOOPHYTES. 239 



as to shrink if touched, while the other polypes 

 seem quite unaffected by the movement, and fear- 

 less of harm. It is these cases, or polypidoms, 

 which so often attract us on the beach or sands, 

 where they lie ; blown about by every wind, or 

 finding a resting-place in some hollow among the 

 stones. Beautiful horn-coloured sprays, like little 

 fir-trees, or resembling brittle withered leaves, or 

 forming crusts on sea-weeds, we see them every 

 day in our summer rambles on the shore, and per- 

 haps admire their graceful forms, and see how they 

 are adapted to bend before the wave ; but when 

 we behold them through the microscope, and 

 discover their wondrous living inmates, their 

 active star-like polypes, all instinct with life and 

 vigour; their beautiful cup-like, or bell-shaped, 

 cells ; their vesicles, now resembling a pomegra- 

 nate flower, now shaped like some antique model 

 of a vase, we feel how much there is of beauty 

 lying unperceived by us even in common things, 

 and bow in humble reverence before the Almighty 

 Maker, to whom the little and the great seem 

 alike deserving of his wondrous skill, alike the 

 objects of his constant care. 



Interesting as are the permanent fabrics of the 

 zoophytes, the sea-fans, of far distant seas, the 

 corals of commerce, or the white stony mushroom- 

 like corals which greet us in museums ; and ele- 

 gant as are the horny branches on our sands, yet 

 the little polypes, unseen by the naked eye, are 

 no less beautiful, and present a far more wondrous 

 structure than the skeletons themselves. Let us 

 gather up from the beach one of those horny 

 sprays, which the wind blows hither and thither, 

 and place it under a good microscope, and down the 



