OF CORNWALL. 241 
at large it meets any ligneous plants, it flicks and coats them round 
as we find by the fea-fans ; but if this fhell is not the plain confe- 
quence of the adhaefion only of thefe particles, but the work of 
animals, and is accumulated round them by millions of fea-infeds, 
which fix their fhells fo clofe to one another as to form a compleat 
cafe to the branched fubftance which they inclofe, it is much more 
to be admired ; if it picks up any feeds, we can eafily imagine that 
by its fertilizing nature, it may feed, expand, and nourifh thefe 
feeds into mofies and corallines ; if it meets with the ovaria of in- 
fects, it ferves as a nidus for them to grow in, and a fhell after- 
wards (which may pofiibly be formed by themfelves) where they 
alternately hide themfelves for fafety, and whence they extend them- 
felves for nourifhment. Of the fprig-coral, (if it be not the fabrick 
of animals, as fome learned men contend) its branch-like fhape, 
though fo knotty and fhort Hemmed, may be owing to vegetation 
(as from its figure is ufually fufpeded) ; but if, according to others, 
it grows only by juxta-pofttion , thefe fhort ftems are rolled into a 
cylindrical form by the fea, brought into contact before their foft 
jelly parts are hardened, then knotted together, and their interftices 
filled more or lefs in proportion to the quantity of coral with which 
they chanced to coincide. I fhall not not lift in this difpute, but whether 
in juftice to the gentlemen who think corals the fabrick of animals, ^4* <5 
I muft obferve, that the efcharae, Plate xxiv. Fig. vi. and vm. tho’ animals, 
curled and folded in fuch a leaf-like manner, are no more (as it 
feems to me) than thin, and very orderly affemblages of the fhells 
of animalcules : the fafciated coral >' at its firft beginning is no more 
than fo many tubular fheaths or fhells of infeds ; they are conneded 
gradually by other infeds which ftretch their coatings in tranfverfe 
lines from tube to tube, gradually filling up the fpaces between, 
as in Plate xxvii. Figure vii ; and in time this bundle of fheaths 
is formed into a folid coralloid aftroite, where the firft and largeft 
tubes ftill appear, with their openings afterifked as in madre- 
p ora ports ftellatis of Linnaeus (Syft. Nat. Tab. vi. Figure vm). 
The Tubipora (Fig. vii. ibid.) confifts of fmaller tubes placed 
clofer together and conneded, formed cylindrically by a fmaller and 
different animal. The Millepora (Fig. ix. ib.) is pierced with holes, 
and fcarce vifible to the naked eye ; the tubes probably of more 
diminutive infeds ; and our fprig and branch-coral may pof- 
fibly be the fabrick of ftill fmaller creatures, though to the eye no 
more than imperfed, uninformed vegetables. I would obferve far- 
ther, that the teftaceous animalcule which proceeds out of the ba- 
lanus fhell, (Linns, ib. Fig. iv.) has fixteen legs or claws jointed 
y Lhuyd’s Lithoph. N°. 104. 
Q_qq 
Of 
