96 How Sammy Went to Coral-Land 
“ But come,” said the Pilot. “ Here we 
have spent all this time talking about the 
Anemones, and the coral is far more in¬ 
teresting and beautiful. Suppose we 
take a look at this large tree,” he went on 
in his most school-master manner. “ See 
how lovely it is with its trunk and 
branches covered with little star-shaped 
flowers ! Those flowers are the polyps, 
and they, or rather their ancestors, made 
the tree. You know that the most impor¬ 
tant of the coral polyps live in groups, or 
colonies. They usually reproduce them¬ 
selves by budding in very much the same 
way as do the Anemones, but the Coral 
Polyp does not separate from the parent 
when it gets its growth ; it stays fastened 
to the mother, and soon imitates her exam¬ 
ple by producing a bud which becomes a 
coral flower. And so it goes on until 
there is a whole colony of animals, each 
