62 CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 



the growing Zoanthid ; but the crab holds on to its house 

 although at the expense of transporting wherever it goes a 



EPIZOANTHTJS AMEKICANUS, V., WITH EUPAGUKUS PUBESCEHS, ST. - 



colony of flowering polyps. The polyps are but partly ex- 

 panded in figure 1, and wholly so in figure 2. 



The animals of the Zoanthus tribe have broad, radiated 

 disks, with an edging of short tentacles, in one or more 

 rows. Although not secreting coral, the mucus of the sur- 

 face in some of the species entangles the sand that falls 

 on it, and thus gives a degree of firmness to the mass of the 

 zoophyte. 



3. The Antipathus tribe, or Antipathacea. In this tribe 

 the polyps never have locomotion, and, as far as known, al- 

 ways produce compound groups by budding. These groups 

 have the forms of delicate shrubs and long twigs ; and some of 

 them are three feet or more in height. The branches consist of 

 a horny axis, usually spiny or hispid over its surface, surrounded 

 by an animal coating, which is made up of united polyps. An 

 example is shown in the following figure of a living species 

 from the Feejees. A view of one of the polyps, much enlarged, is 

 given in the following figure. Its tentacles are closely like 

 those of the Actinia. The height of the entire shrub, collected 

 by the author, was three feet, and the trunk at base was 

 half an inch thick. The polyps had a brownish-yellow color, 

 not particularly beautiful, and the tentacles were in general, as 



