VERMIOLOGY. 



we rarely seen it in any other state, owing to the perishable nature 

 or friability of the flesh when dried, the joints are red, varying from 

 a pale carnation to scarlet, with the connecting articulations yellowish. 

 Sometimes the joints are white, sometimes white tinged with luteous, 

 sometimes pale purple, and in all such instances the connecting 

 articulations are usually darker. The example we have represented is 

 one of peculiar delicacy, the osseous joints being more linear or gracile 

 than usual, and the colour of a vivid brightness : this delicacy of 

 structure we conceive to be an indication of its early growth, for, as 

 before observed, when the coral increases in magnitude, the main stems 

 thicken or become more robust in proportion, the better to sustain 

 the weight of the minor branches. 



From the very close similitude in appearance of those shrub- 

 like corals, it is generally known that the elder botanists did not 

 hesitate to describe them as genuine plants : they are the " Stony- 

 plants " of those botanists, and the species now before us is described 

 as such by Clifford, under the name of Lithoxylon. But since that 

 period it has appeared under various other designations in the 

 nomenclature of naturalists : by Linnaeus and Pallas, and in the 

 '* Zoophytes " of Ellis, it is deemed an Isis ; previous to that time 

 it bore the name of Corallium rubrum indicum, and is so called by 

 Ellis in his paper on the subject in the Transactions of the Royal 

 Society : in the work of Morison it is denominated an Hippuris ; by 

 Rumphius and Seba, Acca-baar ; and by Ray, Pseudocorallium 

 croceum : and lastly, we should mention that Lamoureux, at the 

 instigation of Lamarck, and subsequently Lamarck himself, has 

 separated this species and two or three other of its analogies from 

 the genus Isis, where Linnaeus had placed it, to his newly-instituted 



