THE LASSO-THROWERS. 
75 
Fig. 30. 
kind, you will be able to see clearly these solid par- 
titions entirely enclosing the body. In this way the 
animal is fairly shut in, only the stomach with its 
mouth and tentacles remaining free ; and as it buds 
and buds, feeding greedily with its lassos, and laying 
down lime particle by particle out of the restless 
sea, it builds a firm skeleton, sometimes branched 
(see Fig. 29), some- 
times solid, as in 
the brain - coral, ~~. 
according to the 
way in which the 
buds are given off 
one from the other. 
And when the 
animal dies, in- 
stead of leaving 
only a smooth stem 
behind, it leaves Devonshire Cup-Coral.* From Johnston. 
each little cup of a, Living animal, b, Coral skeleton, 
lime in the shape showin S the ston y walls which the body lays 
" down between the fleshy partitions. 
of its own body. 
How these corals have lived and grown for ages 
in the midst of the stormy Pacific, while the sinking 
bed of the sea carried down the dead coral as a solid 
wall, is a story which belongs to geology. Here we 
have only to picture the living animal, tiny and tender, 
yet strong in its two great powers the power of 
catching and feeding on the creatures of the sea, and 
the power of building a solid skeleton with the grains 
of lime. In this way day by day, stretching out 
their tender arms and flinging their lassos by millions 
* Caryophyllittm Smithii. 
