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ation from the other fossil zoophytes which we have noticed, in its 
not possessing a footstalk or pedicle, by which it could have been at- 
tached, like them, to any other substance. A little attention, how- 
ever, to the organization of this animal mass, will, I think, discover 
that such a structure has been here employed, as was well calculated 
to afford a very efficient substitute for the pedicle, with which we 
have seen that the alcyonia have been furnished. It has appeared’ 
in the course of our inquiries, that the animals of the alcyonic kind 
are destined to derive their sustenance from the various contents of 
the sea-water, a frequent renewal of which is procured by the power 
which they possess of alternately drawing it into, and ejecting it from, 
certain cavities in the substance which they animate. This process must 
of necessity be effected by the operation of muscular fibres, disposed 
in such directions as are best calculated to produce the desired effect. 
But that these muscular parts may act with a greater degree of force 
and energy, it is necessary that they should be attached, at one of 
their terminations, to a fixed point ; towards which, the parts at- 
tached to their other termination may be drawn by their contraction. 
Hence we find that all the alcyonia we have hitherto described have 
been fixed to some other substance, by a pedicle, not much unlike, in its 
appearance, to the root of a shrub. 
A view of the arrangement of the tubuli or fibres, in the particular 
species now under our examination, will instruct us in the mode 
which has been employed, in this animal, to establish a fixed point from 
which the fibres might act ; and at the same time, to allow the power 
of removal from one place to another. Supposing the animal laid 
on its inferior surface, on any substance wet with the sea-water, a 
retraction upwards of the fibres, about the centre of that surface, 
would, of course, produce a cavity, and a vacuum between that sur- 
face and the surface of the body on which the alcyonium was placed ; 
in the same manner as it is produced by pulling the string in the centre of 
the leathern suckers of children. Thus would be occasioned so strong 
