366 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



arborescent structure,' and enables it to rise to a height of 

 several feet, or even, if we are to credit the Norway fishermen, 

 to rival our forest-trees in magnitude. This they conclude to 

 be the case from their nets being sometimes entangled on the 

 trunk or stem of the Prvmnoa lepadifera, as this large species 

 of gorgon is called, when the united strength of several men is 

 unable to free the nets. " They have even assured me," says 

 Sir A. Capell de Brooke, " that the corals grow to the height of 

 fifty or sixty feet, as they judge from the following circumstance, 

 which seems clear and simple. The lines for the red-fish, which 

 is found in the greatest plenty where the primnoa grows, are 

 set in very deep water at the distance of about six feet from the 

 bottom, and in the parts where it is flat and level, which they 

 can tell from their soundings. On drawing up the lines at the 

 distance of forty, fifty, or sixty feet, and sometimes even more 

 from the bottom, they get entangled with some of the upper 

 parts or branches of the gorgon, which are thus torn off, and 

 hence they reasonably conclude that the animal rises to this 

 height." 



The Gorgonidae either branch away irregularly like shrubs, 

 or else their branches inosculate and form a kind of net or fan, 

 as in the Flabellum Veneris, a beautiful Indian species, which 

 some naturalist of more than usual fancy has appropriated to 

 the use of Venus. 



Four British species of Grorgonia are recorded. G. verrucosa, 

 the commonest of these, abounds in deep water along the whole 

 of the south coast of England. It is more than twelve inches 

 in height, and fifteen or seventeen in breadth, and expands* 

 laterally in numerous cylindrical and warty branches. It is 

 somewhat fan-shaped, but does not form a continuous network. . 

 Its coral has a dense black axis, with a snow-white pith in the 

 centre, and is covered, while living, with a flesh-coloured crust. 

 The flexible corneous stem of the Grorgonias enables them to 

 bend beneath the passing current, and thus prevents their 

 long and slender ramifications from breaking, while the hard 

 calcareous branches of the valuable red coral {GoralUum, 

 nobile) are sufficiently short and strong to resist the violence 

 of the sea. This beautiful marine production, though also 

 occurring in the Ethiopic Ocean and about Cape Negro, is 

 chiefly found in the Mediterranean, on the shores of Provence, 



