POLYPKS.— THE CORAL. 



Coral Island of C/cnnont- Tonnerre in the Poino- 

 tuaii Archipclogo. 



Most of onr readers will probably be familiar with 

 the exquisite Hnes of Southey, describing the garden- 

 scenery which flourishes at the bottom of the ocean ; 

 liuea which are no less true than beautiful: — 



" It was a garden still beyond all price, 

 Even yet it was a place of Paradise ; 

 For wliere the iniglity ocean could not spare, 

 Tliere had he with his own creation 

 Sought to repair the work of devastation. 

 And here were coral bowers, 

 And grots of madrepores, 

 And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye 

 As e'er was mossy bed 

 Whoreon the wood-nymphs lie 

 With lansuid limbs in summer's sultry hours. 

 ]lere too were living flowers 

 Which, like a bud compacted. 

 Their purple cups contracted, 

 And now in open blossom spread, 

 Stretched like green anthers many a seeking head. 



And arborets of jointed stone were there 



And plants of fibre fine as silkworm's thread ; 



Yea, beautiful as mermaid's golden hair 



Upon the waves dispread. 

 Others that, like the broad banana growln::. 

 Raised their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue, 

 Like streamers wide out-flowing."* 



But besides these ocean-gardens the sea has its far- 

 epreading forests — forests of purple and rosy hues — 

 wliich cover the wildest and most irregular rocks, and 

 lift tlieir crests up to the very surface of the waves ; 

 forests formed by the untiling labours of generations 

 tipon generations of Polypes, the Red Coral. 



By ancient naturalists the coral was regarded as 

 a marine plant, and the Greeks fancifully named it 

 Ko^dXKiov, from xoc»i and aXoV — that is, the daughter 

 of the sea. This opinion was also held by Tournefort, 

 and even by the illustrious Reaumur, who asserted that 

 coral was the stony product of certain plants. The 

 Comte de Marsigli, no undistinguished name in the 

 I'.istory of science, also looked upon it as a member of 

 the vegetable kingdom, and declared that he had dis- 

 covered its expanded flowers. But the researches of 

 Peysonnel revealed its true character. A long series 

 of carefully conducted observations showed him, that 

 the supposed flowers were true animals, and the coral 

 one of the rudimentary forms of created life. He com- 

 municated tliese results to Ri?aumur and Bernard de 

 Jussieu, but both tliese naturalists professed to be un- 

 convinced. At length the discoveries of Trembley in 

 reference to the fresh-water HydriE, which, formerly 

 mistaken for plants, like the coral, proved, like the 

 coral, to he animalcules, threw a fresh light upon the 

 value of Peysonnel's experiments, and secured them 

 universal respect. From that time the animal nature 

 of the coralline has never been contested. 



Coral is now admitted to be a family of polypes 

 living in association and forming a pobjpkr. They 

 belong to the great and remarkable order of Zoophytes. 



A branch of living coral, so to speak, is an aggrega- 

 tion of animals derived from a parent individual by a 

 process resembling budding. They are united to each 

 • Southey, The Curse of Kehama, xvi. 5. 



other by a common tissue, and while all labour towards 

 one and the same end, each enjoys a distinct and 

 independent existence. The branch originates in an 

 egg, which is spherical in form, opaque, and of a milky 

 white. Gradually it increases in length, and clothes 

 itself in numerous vibrating cilia;. As soon as it is 

 laid, or more correctly speaking, vomited, it opens in 

 itself a central aperture or pore, destined to become its 

 mouth. Next it assumes the form of a small, whitish, 

 semi-transparent worm, which swims to and fro with 

 considerable swiftness, and turns about when it en- 

 counters one of its own kind. It rises and sinks in the 

 sliallows which it inhabits, carrying its base or larger 

 extremity always in front, and its month behind. 

 Thence it happens, that on coming into collision with 

 any object, it immediately adheres. 



As soon as it has found a place of fixation it aban- 

 dons its worm-like form; it expands, as it were, losing 

 in length what it gains in breadth ; growing shorter 

 and of a discoidal shape. It may now be described as 

 a nearly cylindrical, whitish, membranous tube, whose 

 upper disc is encircled by eiglit tentacula, bearing 

 numerous delicate lateral filaments or fibres. Its ap- 

 pearance is not unlike the corolla of some kinds of 

 flowers, and is characterized by remarkable grace and 

 even beauty. 



Occasionally the arms of the polype are subject to 

 a violent agitation ; the tentacula fold and roll them- 

 selves up like the coils of a serpent. If, under such 

 circumstances, we should examine its expanded disc, 

 we should find, within the eight tentacula, a perfectly 

 circular space, whose centre is occupied by a small 

 mammal ; and we should detect, on the summit of this 

 mammal a small slit like two rounded lips, being the 

 mouth of tlie polype. 



A cylindrical tube connected with the mouth is the 

 oesophagus or guliet, which seems to be suspended in 

 the interior of the body by certain folds issuing with 

 admirable symmetry from eight points of its circum- 

 ference. The folds which thus secure the cesophagus 

 in its place form a series of cells, above each of which 

 it attaches itself, and supports an arm or tentaciihim. 

 The polype thus attached to its life-long home, be- 

 comes the founder of a great arboreal colony. Buds 

 or bourgeons form upon its axes, and produce, by course 

 of development, a small world of Corallines. 



Among all adhering animals it is an invariable law 

 that the larvse should be mobile. The young polypes, 

 on emerging from their eggs, differ in almost every 

 respect from their parents. They have to undergo 

 a series of metamorphoses, as we have seen, before 

 they can attain their perfect state; but these metamor- 

 phoses are in an inverted order to those of insects. 

 Among the latter, the chrysalis, which is immovable, 

 changes into the butterfly, which flies. Among the 

 corals, the larva, which swims and moves, is trans- 

 formed into the fixed polype.* 



The ditl'ereiit polypes are imbedded in a kind of 

 fleshy substance, thick, soft, and easily dinted by the 

 lightest touch of the finger. This is the living part 

 which produces the coral, and is so far extended as to 

 cover the entire polypicr. Wherever it perishes the 

 * Fic'dol, La Slonde do la Mer. 



