THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 65 



It is a branched polypus-trunk, of a beautiful red colour, 

 which is as hard as the most compact rocks, and, like them, 

 capable of taking a fine polish. When it is withdrawn from 

 the sea, of which it only inhabits the great depths, it is, 

 owing to the arrangement of its branches, precisely like a 

 bush in miniature, and a section of its stem presents con- 

 centric layers analogous to those of certain trees. Its 

 branches are covered with a soft rose-coloured bark, and 

 display here and there small holes, in each of which resides 

 one of their builders. These are so many Polypi, which, 

 when they expand, wear all the appearance of pretty little 

 flowers of a beautiful white colour, with eight divisions 

 spread out like rays, and the borders of which are orna- 

 mented with a fringe of cilice. 



It was this deceitful appearance which made naturalists 

 waver so about the nature of coral. 



Its extreme hardness, and the beautiful polish it takes, 

 led some observers to look upon it as a simple mineral. 



But the idea which seemed to predominate over all 

 others was that of coral being only a submarine shrub. 

 This was the opinion of Pliny and Dioscorides; and these 

 two great scholars, seeing it was so hard and compact, 

 added that the shrub only made its appearance in this 

 indurated form, because it became suddenly petrified 

 when brought into contact with the air, as it issued from 

 the waves. 



The sagacious traveller Tournefort gained in respect 

 to this subject no knowledge from his wanderings in the 

 East, the native land of this celebrated polyi^idom. He 

 also took it to be a plant, and even had it engraved under 

 this heading in one of the plates of his magnificent work. 

 It is there placed in the twenty-second class of the vege- 

 table kingdom, in the section which he entitles "of the 



