96 HANDY BOOK OP 



therefore, be regarded as a living layer of animal matter, 

 which is fed by numerous mouths, and supported by an 

 equal number of stomachs. It deserves honourable men- 

 tion, that the firm calcareous skeleton is always covered by 

 the common skin of the colony, through whose numerous 

 openings a rich flora of radiated flowers buds. 



As the Lithophytes, or Stone Corals, have a growth re- 

 sembling that of plants, it must excite no surprise to find 



LITHOPHYTJE. 



that they imitate all the forms of vegetation. We find 

 among them mosses and creepers, shrubs and trees, which 

 attain a height of six to eight feet ; or graceful vases and 

 symmetrical cupolas, which often have a diameter of ten and 

 even twenty feet. 



But all these variously-developed forms spring originally 

 from a single spray, which, proceeding bud by bud, accord- 

 ing to its peculiar nature, forms the broad leaf, the thin 

 spray, or the hemisphere. 



It may be said of the tropical Zoophytes, which form the 

 wall-like Coral-reef, and in the truest sense of the term, 

 that they build for eternity. The skeleton of the higher 

 animals disappears from the earth in a few years ; but the 

 stone skeleton of the Polype remains firmly rooted to the 



