236 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
which is imbedded in the thickness of the tissues of the animal. 
These caminga, at first quite flat, assume in the course of their develop- 
ment a horse-shoe shape. Figs. 95 and 96 will give the reader some 
idea of the form in which the young present themselves. Fig. 95 
represents the corpuscles in which the polypidom has its origin ; 
Fig. 96, the rudimentary form of the coral polypidom. 
Our present information does not enable us to say what time is 
necessary for the coral to acquire the various proportions in which it 
presents itself to the coral fisher. 
Passing to the coral fishing, it may be said to be quite special, 
presenting no analogy with any other fishing in the European seas, if 
we except the sponge fisheries. The fishing stations which occur are 
found on the Italian coast and the coast of Barbary; in short, in most 
parts of the Mediterranean basin. In all these regions, on abrupt 
rocky beds, certain aquatic forests occur, composed entirely of the 
red coral, the most brilliant and the most celebrated of all the corals, 
Coralium decus liguidi! During many ages, as we have seen, the 
coral was supposed to be a plant. The ancient Greeks called it the 
daughter of the sea (Kopdarsov xdpy dads), which the Latins translated 
into esralium or corallium. It is now agréed among naturalists that 
the coral is constructed by a family of polyps living together, and 
composing a polypidom. It abounds in the Mediterranean and the 
Red Sea, where it is found at various depths, but rarely less than five 
fathoms, or more than 100. Each polypidom resembles, as we have 
seen, a pretty red leafless under-shrub, bearing delicate little star-like 
radiating white flowers. The axes of this little tree are the parts 
common to the association, the flowrets are the polyps. These axes 
present a soft reticulated crust, or bark, full of little cavities, which 
are the cells of the polyps, and they are permeated by a milky juice. 
Beneath the crust is the coral, properly so called, which equals marble 
in hardness, and is remarkable for its striped surface, its bright red 
colour, and the fine polish of which it is susceptible. The ancients 
believed that it was soft in the water, and only took its consistence 
when exposed to the air :— 
, 
‘Sic et coralium, quo primum contigit auras 
Tempore, durescit.”—Ovib. 
The fishing is chiefly conducted by sailors from Genoa, Leghorn, 
and Naples, and it is so fatiguing that it is a common saying ih Italy 
that a sailor obliged to go to the coral fishery should be a thief or an 
