A SEA FAN AND A SEA PARABLE. 125 



ranged about the central point, which is the 

 mouth. 



" We are apt to regard such minute organ- 

 isms as insensible to surrounding conditions, 

 and unable to communicate with each other 

 even if they might be conscious of anything to 

 communicate, but we find Nature clothes her 

 'feeble folk' with mystery and endows them 

 with faculties we can not understand ; and 

 if you were to injure or disturb one of the 

 polyps in a piece of coral like this, quick 

 as a flash would the danger be telegraphed 

 to every member of the little colony, and 

 you would see each tiny animal instantly 

 curl back as if he had been the one who suf- 

 fered. 



"An enormous traffic is carried on in the 

 different varieties of coral, affording employ- 

 ment for hundreds of vessels and thousands of 

 fishermen. It is broken from the sea bottom 

 by means of beams or irons attached to the 

 boats used for that purpose, and brought up by 

 grappling irons ; divers also are employed in 

 these coral fisheries. I once saw them in the 

 Mediterranean gathering red coral {Corallmm 

 ruhrum), the divers themselves looking like 

 very unattractive mermen, or sea monsters, as 

 they came up from the depths with the great 



