BRITISH CORALLINE^. 211 



leads to the presumjition tliat the polypes are placed at the 

 summit of the branches, while in the latter, they apparently 

 cover all the surface of the polypidom under the form of fila- 

 ments, which, though scarcely retractile, are yet endowed with 

 a movement that can only be attributed to animal life.* " In 

 rambling over the Calvados, (a range of rocks on the coast of 

 Normandy,) I have frequently found a very large corallina, a 

 variety of the C. officinalis; it was covered with simple tran- 

 sparent filaments, a millimetre in length, which had a move- 

 ment peculiar to themselves : they disappeared with the slight- 

 est agitation of the water, or when the polypidom was exposed 

 to the air. In the latter case, I was never able, with the strongest 

 magnifier, to discover the slightest remains of those filaments, 

 the point they had been attached to, or the cells they miglit 

 have issued from, supposing them to have been polypi. 

 This, however, remains doubtful, as it was only in spring I 

 ever observed them, and then only on a few particular indi- 

 viduals. I never could discover them in winter."f La- 



mouroux has found the tubercles that frequently stud every 

 species of coralline to be solid or filled with small grains, 

 — whence he deems it probable that they are ovaria, enclos- 

 ing the germs of future polypidoms. 



According to Bosc, the pores scattered over the coralline 

 are each of them the dwelling of a polype, but he confesses 

 that upon trial he could never see the animal. :$■ What 

 else he writes on this subject, is borrowed from Ellis. 



Lamarck boasts that to him belongs the merit of having 

 discovered the true position of the corallines amongst zoo- 

 phytes, for although Solander had previously approximated 



* Corall. Flex. p. 2G7 : Corall. p. 120. f Corallina, p. 1-24-5. 



I Hist. Nat. des Vers, iii, pp. 70 and 7-2. 



