ON THE SICILIAN fiORAI. FISHERY. 141 



capable of resisting the percussion of the sea, and affording 

 them a retreat in the moment of danger. 



These coralligenous polypi are only a few lines in length, their ^|^g polvpi 

 bodies elongate and ramify into eight delicate threadlike described, 

 branches around the mouth. These are the arms and legs of 

 the animal, which it can extend and spread out at will to a con- 

 siderable distance in search of its food. They are analogous to the 

 horns of the snail. The curious manner of propagation of polypi, 

 so different from that of other larger and more perfect animals, 

 is well known j on examining minutely the gelatinous bodies of 

 these polypi, a great number of grains, or little buds, are dis- 

 cernible, covering the surface ; these elongate themselves, 

 increase in thickness, diverge and spread in all directions, and 

 become young polypi. Scarcely are these developed before a 

 new series of sprouts appears from their small bodies by the 

 increase and growth of the small buds on their surface. By 

 this rapid succession the family is propagated in every direction, 

 forming as it were a genealogical tree of existing generations. 

 It is well known how from the soft nature of their bodies these 

 animals are enabled to unite and engraft with each other in 

 the same manner as plants ; and one branch of these animalculae 

 so engrafted lives and regenerates another. Even one single 

 animal may detach itself from the family tree, and establish on 

 another spot a new family with its various branches. While 

 large animals have bones for the support of the softer parts, and 

 shell fish are protected by their shells, the coralligenous polypi 

 make use of a certain proportion of earth to incorporate with 

 and give firmness to their form. 



Immediately as a polypus has fixed itself on a hard body, it 

 begins to lay the foundation of its future generation. If you Growth of the 

 only take some stores from the bottom of the sea round Sicily, polypi, 

 you will find on them small branches of red coral, and round 

 red spots, which are the first depositions of the coralligenous 

 polypi. In the same way as the bones of the larger animals are 

 formed by the gradual deposition of the earthy particles sepa- 

 rated from their food by vessels adapted to this purpose, so is 

 the covering of these polypi fonned by the carbonate of lime 

 mixing and encrustating witli tlie gelatinous matter, which is so 

 abundantly secreted by their delicate bodies, and gradually 



incases 



