FLORIDA REEFS. 49 



home nearer the surface ; such a home being made ready for them by 

 their predecessors, they now establish themselves on the top of the coral 

 wall and continue its growth for a certain time. These are the Mseandrinas 

 (Plate IX.), or the so-called Brain-Corals, and the Pontes (Plates XII. and 

 XVI.). The M^eandrinas differ from the Astraeans by their less compact 

 and definite pits. In the Astrseans the place occupied by the animal in 

 the community is marked by a little star-shaped spot, in the centre of 

 which all the partition-walls meet. But in the Maeandrinas, although all 

 the partitions converge toward the central opening, as in the Astraeans, 

 these central openings elongate, run into each other, and form waving 

 furrows all over the surface, instead of the small round pits so character- 

 istic of the Astrseans. The Po rites resemble the Astraeans, but the pits 

 are smaller, with fewer partitions and fewer tentacles, and their whole 

 substance is more porous. 



But these also have their bounds within the sea : they in their turn 

 reach the limit beyond which they are forbidden by the laws of their 

 nature to pass, and there they also pause. But the coral wall continues 

 its steady progress ; for here the lighter kinds set in, — the Madrepores 

 (Plates XVIL, XVIII, and XIX.), the Millepores (Plate XX.), and a great 

 variety of Sea-Fans (Plate XXI.), and Corallines (Plate XXIL), and the 

 reef is crowned at last with a many-colored shrubbery of low feathery 

 growth. These are all branching in form, and many of them are simple 

 calciferous plants, though most of them are true animals, resembling, 

 however, delicate Algae more than any marine animals ; but, on examination 

 of the latter, one finds them to be covered with myriads of minute dots, 

 each representing one of the little beings out of which the whole is 

 built, while nothing of the kind is seen in Algae. 



I would add here one word on the true nature of the Millepores, long 

 misunderstood by naturalists. While pursuing my investigations on the 

 coral reefs of Florida, one of these Millepores revealed itself to me in its 

 true character of Acaleph. It must be remembered that they belong to 

 the hydroid group of Acalephs, of which our common jelly-fishes do not 

 give a correct idea. It is by their soft parts alone, — those parts which 

 are seen only when these animals are alive and fully open, — that their 

 Acalephian character can be perceived, and this accounts for their 

 being so long accepted as Polyps, when studied in the dry coral stock. 

 Nothing could exceed my astonishment when for the first time I saw 



