THE ANIMAL KINGDOIM. 



6: 



SO many eiglit-petaled flowers, formed of elegant white 

 and starred corolloe, outlined upon the reddish bark of the 

 stems. Marsigli doubted no longer; these were the flowers 

 of the paradoxical shrub; he had solved the jjroblem left 

 unsettled by Tournefort. In his joy, when announcing his 

 discovery to the assembled Academy of Sciences, to whom 

 he had forwarded his specimens, he wrote to the president, 

 "I send you some branches of coral covered with white 



31. A, Polypi of Coral, magnified; B, Ciliated Oyule ; C, Larva. 



flowers. This discovery has made me pass for almost a 

 sorcerer in the country; no person, not even the fishermen, 

 having seen anything similar." 



The illustrious and learned assembly was convinced, 

 but its convictions and the repose of ]\Iarsigli were only 

 to be of brief dm^ation. Not long after men thought they 

 had really grasped the truth, Peyssonnel, a French phy- 

 sician, who in 1725 happened to travel along the coast of 

 Barbary, having been present at the coral-fishing, and 

 having instituted some lengthy investigations on the sub- 

 ject, discovered that the pretended flowers of the coral 



