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THE SERTULARIAN ZOOPHYTES OF OUR SHORES. 
BY THE REV. THOMAS HINCKS, B.A. 
[PLATES XLV. and XLVL] 
MONGrST the rejectamenta which strew the shore after a 
fresh breeze and a rough tide, there are few things more 
likely to arrest the eye and win the admiration, even of the 
least observant, than the corallines, which mingle their light 
and flexile forms with the tangled masses of weed or lie in 
graceful tufts upon the sand. With the uninitiated, their 
plant-like configuration passes as conclusive evidence of their 
vegetable nature ; and the non-scientific world now, like the 
men of science of a century ago, receives the doctrine of their 
animality with incredulity. And indeed we cannot wonder at 
the scepticism; for so complete is the imitation of vegetable 
form in these beings, and so vegetative in many respects is the 
fashion of their life, that there is nothing to suggest a doubt, 
on a slight and superficial acquaintance, as to their afiSnities. 
The skeletons only of the zoophyte commonly fall in the way 
of the amateur collector on the shore, and these, intermingled 
with the Algae, and resembling nothing so much as miniature 
shrubs and trees, offer no sufficient clue to the interpretation of 
its history. 
We propose to give a general sketch of one section of our 
British zoophytes — the section that embraces the largest and 
most familiar kinds, and of which the common Sertidaria is a 
typical member. The interest excited by the beauty of their 
plant-like forms will be deepened by a knowledge of their 
structure and economy. Indeed we first attain an adequate 
conception of their beauty when we study them in the living 
state, and recognise the plain proofs of their animal nature in 
the multitude of polypites that now display their wreaths of 
milk-white tentacles, like blossoms on a tree, and now withdraw 
in sudden haste within the shelter of their cup-like dwellings. 
Zoophyte is an old-fashioned and somewhat vague term, but 
not without its use as a convenient popular designation of the 
extensive tribe in which, though the attributes of the two king- 
doms are not blended as the elder naturalists fancied, the vege- 
VOL. VIII. — NO. XXXII. Q 
