614 PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGY. 



covered with eight longitudinal folds, dividing the cavity 

 into eight cells, the walls incomplete at the centrel. The 

 stomach is large, and opens at the bottom into eight intes- 

 tines, which attach themselves to the partitions. Two of 

 these intestines proceed to the base of the abdomen, and pe- 

 netrate the fleshy coral without anastomosing. The other 

 six terminate in as many pedunculated glands at the bot- 

 tom of the lateral cells •. The following genera belong 

 to this tribe. Anthelia, Zenia, Ammothea, Lobularia 

 and Cornularia. As nearly connected with this tribe in 

 form and the condition of the coral, we may notice the cu- 

 rious natural family of Sponges, the polypi of which are 

 unknown. The fleshy matter is similar in its nature, and 

 supported by intermixed fibres of a denser substance. In 

 the Spongia and Ephydatia •}-, the fibres are soft, irregu- 

 larly dispersed, and appear to consist of a substance like 

 coagulated albumen. In the genus Tethya, the fibres are 

 stony, and diverge from the centre to the circumference of 

 the mass. The form of the first is irregular or branched, 

 that of the second globular. 



In the remaining tribes, the fleshy matter covers a stony 

 or corneous support, or axis. 



3d Tribe. 



The axis is branched, without stellular pores, and the 

 fleshy matter spread over it, with the polypi irregularly dis- 

 tributed over the surface. 



A. Axis corneous, as in Antipathes and Gorgonia. 



B. Axis stony, as Corallium, Melitea and Isis. 



• Lam ARK, Hist. Nat. 11. 403. 



•f- I have given a delineation of the Ephydatia canalium, from an Irish 

 specimen, Plate v. f, i. 



