[ r8 9 ] 
animals alive in it, Phil. Franf. Vol. xlviii. Tab. 
XVII. Fig. E, F, G, to fhcw you the nature of the 
tubular ftrudture of the keratophyta. 
I now lay before you a piece of red coral (See 
Tab. III. Fig. A.) from the Eaft Indies of a very 
fingular kind, which I received from your friend 
Abraham Hume, Efq;. The flan and branches of 
this appear evidently to the naked eye to confift of a 
combination of vermicular tubes clofely connected 
together : and, if we trace thefe little tubes to their 
ftarry openings on the furface, Fig. B. we fhall 
plainly difcover them to be the red teftaceous cover- 
ings of certain marine polypes, which have railed 
themfelves thus upright, and difpofed themfelves into 
this remarkable vegetable form. 
In order to form fome idea, how thefe mafles are 
increafed and extended to the fizes we often meet 
with them, and where the fame regularity of fhape 
is preferved in the large, that we find in the fmall * 
we think it more than probable to fuppofe, that the 
fpecies of polypes, that compofe this coral, breed 
as we find all other polypes do : and this appears 
more evident to me, from what I have already dif- 
covered in many kinds of corallines ( See Plate 38. 
of my Ejf'ay on Corallines ) , where the young polypes 
in fome fpecies are produced in the egg ftate, while 
others fall in great numbers from their matrices, 
completely formed, down to the roots of their parent 
corallines, either to begin a new race of the fame 
fpecies near them, or to increafe the trunk, and ex- 
tend the ramifications, of the plant-like figure which 
they juft defcended from. 
From obferving this method in nature, we fhall 
the eafier account for the progrefs of thofe genera- 
tions 
