64 J. D. Dana on Zoophytes. 
Arr. VII.—On Zoophytes ; by J. D, Dana.* 
Tue singular features of the erowing coral field, the resem- 
blance to vegetation in its productions, as well as their beauty 
and variety, have long excited the attention even of those little 
curious in the forms of living nature. _ Trees, shrubs, and other ' 
plants of various kinds are represented with wonderful exactness, 
as if they had been the types of this branch of the animal king- 
dom; and they grow muna s together often in rich profusion 
like the plants of the land. The similarity, moreover, is not 
confined to general form : - corals have their blossoms ; for polyps 
are flowers both in figure and beauty of coloring. Lika the pink 
or Aster, they have a star-like disk above ; and while some are 
minute, others are half an inch or even two inches in diameter. 
Every part of a Madrepore when alive is covered with these 
blossoms: a Gorgonia, though merely a cluster of naked stems, 
as seen in our cabinets, consists, when in the water, of as many 
crowded spikelets of flowers.—Thus it is with all zoophytes. 
Nothing could be more untrue than the pene dreams of a 
favorite poet.t . 
: “ Shapeless they seem’d, but en h a : 
Elongated like worms, they writhed aud shrunk a 
Fe _ Their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions.—’ 
And again, they are described as issuing from the coral, like 
“ capillary swarms 
Of reptiles horrent as Medusa’s snakes.”’ 
Polyps are not writhing worms. The choicest garden does 
not produce flowers of more graceful figure or gayer colors, than 
those of the zoophyte reef; and we may add too, that the birds 
of the groves will not rival the rich tints of the fishes that sport 
* In the series of articles on zoophytes, which it is proposed to prepare for this 
Journal, the writer presents the facts and principles that have been published in 
his Report on Zoophytes, one of the volumes of the late Exploring Eat se 
under Capt. Charles Wilkes, (see this Journal, Second Series, vol. i, p. 178.) The 
subject is however condensed, and the stile and arrangement alt ered to adapt it 
to these pages, and give it a soutonbat more popular character. It is the writer ’s 
endeavor to Present a sucqinot nocount of | this department, about which there is 
little genera n, to original observations. 
t Montgomery y's Pelican Island. ‘ 
