138 



MEDITERRANEAN PROVINCE. 



analogous offices towards the nutrition and increase 

 of the common mass. 



In plants, the reproductive organs — flowers and 

 fruit — are converted leaves. The small bodies 

 attached to the stems and branches of our common 

 Sertularice, wholly unlike the other parts of these 

 plant-like animals, are their reproductive organs — 

 the vesicles containing the ova ; it was shown by 

 Ed. Forbes that each of these was a metamorphosed 

 branch ; and as this theory of plant-structure is 

 constantly deriving support from those vegetable 

 monstrosities where floral organs revert to leaves, 

 so also does it happen that the Sertularian vesicles 

 exhibit like cases of imperfect conversion. This 

 close analogy gives to the ovarian pods a generic 

 value, and defines the limits of the true Zoophytes 

 to the exclusion of the Bryozoa. 



The Zoophytes thus limited are to be met with 

 throughout the Mediterranean in wonderful pro- 

 fusion and beauty. 



Forms of Sertularid, Campanularia, and Tubu- 

 laria, which are common on our British coasts, are 

 found abundantly along the Atlantic shores of 

 Europe, and thence many of them extend into the 

 Mediterranean. 



Of the Anthozoa, the Tubipores, so abundantly 

 met with in the great Indian Ocean, and in the 

 Red Sea, even at its northern extremity, are seem- 

 ingly wanting in the Mediterranean : the A Icyonidce 

 are, on the other hand, very fully represented. Lobu- 



