622 
EADIATA. 
THE SEA-SHOKE. 
Division IV. RADIATA. 
Once more we return to the Sea — for the whale, the porpoise, and their allies, the finned and 
scaled fishes of a thousand forms, the myriad hosts of the shelled mollusca, the multitudinous 
families of crabs, lobsters, and other Crustacea which inhabit it, have not yet completed the list 
of animal wonders in this broad and boundless element. We now stand upon the sea-shore and 
behold another form of creation — the EadicUa, of which the star-fishes, corals, and madrepores are 
familiar types. We have already described the structure of this Division of the Animal Kingdom, 
Yol. I., page 18, and at pages 29 and 30 have presented oin- Classification of it. What we have 
still to add must be brief, but we shall ofter abundant evidence that here, as everywhere else in 
the works of Nature, there are exhaustless stores of curious and interesting knowledge. Though 
we certainly find that we are descending, step by step, from the higher to the lower forms of 
existence, and that we now approach animals which seem to put on the semblance of plants and 
stones — many of them in fact taking their names from these objects — we shall discover that from 
them the ocean chiefly derives the phosphoric glow which breaks iu sparks and flashes in the wake 
of the ship ; from them come some of the chosen ornaments of beauty ; from their labors have 
sprung up some of the great islands of the sea, now crowned with all the glories of tropical vege- 
tation. All the monuments of man — his cities, roads, edifices — from the beginning of his history, 
are but as insignificant pebbles in comparison with the works of some of the very humblest of 
these creatures we are about to contemplate. 
In short, we now enter that wonderful domain which the poet has so vividly described : 
" Deep in the wave is a coral grove. That never are wet with the falling dew ; 
Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove; But iu bright and changeful beauty shine, 
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue, Far down in the green and glassy brine. 
