How Animals Work. 



Looking at the little Devonshire Coral growing in 

 its deep rock pool, a frail, gelatinous creature, it is 

 difficult to realize that these anemone-like animals, 

 individually comparatively insignificant in size, by the 

 accumulations of their living skeletons form the reefs 

 and coral islands of the tropical seas ; that masses of 

 rock extending many leagues, like the Great Barrier 

 Reef of Australia, have been built up by them beneath 

 the surface of the waves. To quote Montgomery's 

 delightful lines, 



" Millions of millions thus, from age to age, 

 With simplest skill and toil unweariable, 

 No moment and no movement unimproved, 

 Laid line on line on terrace terrace spread, 

 To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound, 

 By marvellous structure climbing toward the day. 

 Each wrought alone, yet all together wrought 

 Unconscious, not unworthy instruments, 

 By which a hand invisible was rearing 

 A new creation in the secret deep. 







I saw the living pile ascend, 

 The mausoleum of its architects, 

 Still dying upwards as their labours closed : 

 Slime the material, but the slime was turned 

 To adamant by their petrific touch : 

 Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, 

 Their masonry imperishable." 



All corals are very similar in the anatomy of their 

 fleshy parts ; yet how variable in shape, size, and detail 

 of structure is the skeleton they form ! Some, like the 

 so-called ' Mushroom " corals, remain solitary indi- 

 viduals ; others, again, by a process of budding may 



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