72 G O R G Q N I A. 



which circulation is not fo eafily demonftrated in vege- 

 tables. 



From thefe connected radical and flefliy tubes belong- 

 ing to the bafe of the Gorgonia, many young items of the 

 fame fpecies frequently rife, which are furrounded with 

 little mouths ; fo that when we confider them to be a 

 kind of Polype, we mall not be furprized at this manner 

 of increafe, no more than we are at prefent at the clus- 

 tered Animal Flower, or Actinia fociata, defcribed in 

 the Philofophical Tranfactions, Vol. 57. tab. 19. where 

 the young ones are produced from the adhering flefhy 

 tube, that proceeds from the bafe of the old ones. 



Befides, if we confider them to have the fame proper- 

 ties with the Hydra, or frefn-water Polypes, which re- 

 peated experiments prove to us are fo foon reproduced, 

 after they are either cut in pieces or maimed, we fhall not 

 be fo much amazed, when we meet with inftances of 

 the flefh of the trunk and ftem of the Gorgonia, which by 

 fome accident has mortified, and the furface of its bone 

 become rotten, and now the receptacle of many kinds of 

 extraneous marine animalcula, and yet find the branches 

 at top with all their mouths alive and in vigour. This 

 bony part fo decayed now grows no more than the fhell 

 of the oyfler, when the fifh is dead. It becomes only a 

 balis during the time it has ftrength left to fupport the 

 living part above, as the fhell or rock that fupports them 

 both below. But it often happens that the living part 

 above grows downwards, by pufhing forth connected ra- 

 dical tubes and polype mouths on the dead part, as it 

 would on a rock, or any other firm bafis, to fecure itfelf 

 the better, forming at the fame time a new layer of bone, 

 or hard part, on the decayed flefh ; and this is the reafon 

 why in making crofs fections of fome of the ftems of the 



larger 



