CHAPTER X 



THE PEOCESSES OF DEATH IN THE CORAL COLONY 



The subject of repair leads naturally to the consideration of 

 the death of the organism, for when the destructive processes 

 outweigh the resources of repair, then death must inevitably 

 ensue. 



There is one fact in the life-history of corals which the 

 study of their processes of repair clearly brings out, and it is 

 this, that all the methods of regeneration are more for the life- 

 saving of the colony than of the individual. It is a rule with 

 Nature that the life of the individual is of little moment : 

 Nature has little care for individuals, though she strives 

 always to maintain the life of the species. In a vast 

 community of individuals, as is a coral colony, each separate 

 member is but a part of the whole body, and the preservation 

 of the colony is of more import than the saving of a few 

 individuals. A branching Madrepora grows naturally upwards 

 into the danger zone, and the terminal branches are inevitably 

 destroyed, with the sacrifice of a myriad of zooids ; but the 

 result is a stimulus to lateral branching within the area of 

 safety, and the colony continues to flourish. 



In every massive growth starting to develop on all sides 

 of a nucleus, those zooids that are budded below can never 

 hope to live, and those on the upper surface will in all 

 probability die. In all the processes of repair that have been 

 described, it is not the individual which is mended, for an 

 individual once badly damaged is not repaired ; but the loss is 

 made good by the growth of new zooids which assume the 

 functions of those lost. Repair in colonial forms does not 

 save the individual from death, but it preserves the life of the 

 colony. Now loss by death in a colony is not always repaired. 



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