OF CORNWALL. 239 
to defcribe raoft minutely. Thefe coralline mofles are found affixed 
fometimes to fucus\ and fhell-fifh, but in their mod: ufual fituation 
to rocks, as a more firm fettlement ; here we find them fometimes 
in fcattered taffels, at other times cloathing the rock on every fide, 
and forming a piece of fringe-work equal in variety and ftrength of 
colours to the mod: beautiful carpet. The chief defign of nature 
in overfpreading the rocks and pools with fuch a number of Coral- 
lines, I need not obferve was to be as well a ffielter to the lefler 
fry, as nourifhment to the larger fiffi (as we ffiall find in treating 
of fea-infeds) ; but whilft nature is principally intent upon and 
purfuing the ufeful, it never forgets fhape, rangement, and colour- 
ing : its works are never barely ufeful ; they are at the fame time 
ornamental, neatly finiffied beyond conception or the natural reach 
of the eye, engaging, various, exad, coloured, abundant. 
Of the more Bony, folid, white corals, I have obferved three Coralloids 
different forts. Fiiffi, when it fixes upon fcones, and involves them and corals ' 
with incruBations, as Fig. 11. Plate xxiv ; this coral oftentimes 
refembles the foliaceous turns of the liver-wort, as Plate ibid. Fig. 
hi. and is therefore called Lichenoides. In the fecond Bate, it 
confiBs of fmall knotty branches, conneded or growing out of one 
another like a fhrub, and may therefore be termed the fprig or 
branchy coral, as Fig. iv. <2, b. Sometimes again it is found in 
globular lumps, in the middle more folid and compad than either 
of the former, the ffiort fprigs which coat the outfide diverging 
from the centre, and ending at the circumference in folid, fungoid, 
protuberances, as Plate ibid. Fig. v. Befides thefe ordinary appear- 
ances of white coral, we fometimes find it in much more uncom- 
mon fhapes, as the Efchara retiformis ‘ , by Mr. Ellis ' called the 
Efcara foliacea millepoi-a lapidea , &c. It was found on the fea- 
fhore betwixt Penzance and Newlyn, in the year 1755 ; the fpe- 
cimen here exhibited, Plate ibid. Fig. vi. is but fix inches wide; 
I have been affured by a very intelligent fifherman, that he has 
drawn up one with his hook as big as an ordinary horfe’s head : they 
are foft and tender when firB taken out of the fea, but foon harden 
and grow brittle in the air. 
Corals have been alfo found on the fame Brand of the aBroite kind, 
pierced with holes of the afterifk ffiape from bottom to top ; the 
infed which either fcooped out this coral to provide itfelf an ha- 
bitation, or formed it as its ffiell, feems to have begun its workings 
at the bafe, from whence the principal or mother-worm rofe almoB 
perpendicular ; thefe artificers made feveral offsets as they rofe, which 
all diverge from the middle cavity, bending towards the fides of the 
• Ray, Syn. page 31, edit. 3. 1 Page 71. Hift. of Corallines. 
coral 
