76 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



14. We have seen the birth of an independent coral. 

 But these animals have two ways of multiplying : one by 

 which new communities are founded, another by which they 

 spread and increase. A little germ, like the one described 

 above, having undergone the changes I have mentioned, and 

 assumed his permanent character, begins to put out little 

 buds from either side, which grow into new beings exactly 

 like himself, and multiply in their turn, till the community 

 which he has founded is numbered by hundreds, thousands, 

 nay, millions of distinct beings. All the members of this 

 innumerable family are organically connected ; that is, the 

 cavities of their bodies open into each other, so that they 

 lead a common life, the food absorbed by each one circu- 

 lating through the whole mass, and nourishing all the rest. 



15. There is a great difference in the mode of budding 

 among the different kinds of coral. Some spread horizon- 

 tally, budding from the base and pushing outward. In 

 others, each animal gradually widens toward the summit as 

 it grows, assuming a sort of trumpet-shape, and then divides, 

 so that where there was but one mouth there are now two. 

 All the curious and fantastic kinds of coral which we find 

 in cabinets are the results of these different methods of bud- 

 ding. The study of the dead specimens, however, can con- 

 vey a very inadequate idea of the beauty and wonder of the 

 submarine wall, and of the living shrubbery which crowns 

 its summit, as seen upon the reefs of Florida. 



Mrs. Elizabeth 0. Ayassiz. 



THE CORAL GROVE. 



1. Deep in the wave is a coral grove, 



Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove, 

 Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue, 

 That never are wet with the falling dew, 



