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CORALS, ETC.

gined they built up the hard limey coral as bees do their combs; whereas we have seen it is really part of themselves, covered over with flesh (except the base in very old specimens) when the animals are alive. Balanophyllia verrucosa is a species most generally seen. It is of a bright orange colour, and abounds in the Mediterranean. Several living Italian species are exhibited at the Crystal Palace Aquarium.

The dead man's fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) is an object well known to fishermen, both by this name and that of "cow's paps," &c. It is dredged up from deepish water, although frequently found stranded. between tides. It is usually attached by its base, the body swelling upwards, and covered with papillæ when taken out of the water. The general body colour

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varies from yellowish-white to orange-red. Each of the little papillæ, when the Alcyonium is alive, expands into a lovely flower-like animal, so that the fleshy-looking mass called dead man's fingers is in reality a colony of zoophytes. The flesh is braced by the distribution through it of a number of spicules of lime. At the Crystal Palace, Brighton, and elsewhere, these objects are kept alive, and the action of the fringed petal-like tentacles of the zoophytes may be witnessed through a magnifying glass. Alcyonium is one of the sea-fans (Gorgonida), the dried, horny skeletons of which may often be seen in mariners' houses, or in museums. They usually possess a dark horny axis covered with a red, orange, or pinkish skin, when dried. These objects are also colonies of zoophytes, of whose hard horny skeleton we have been speaking. When alive this skeleton is covered with flesh, and out of the latter there spring buds, just as the bark covers a tree, and allows buds to burst through it. We give the figure of a well-known form called Isis hippuris, in which the relation of the skeleton to the external flesh and zoophytes is at once seen. Isis is found on the east coast of Scotland, and the Orkney Islands.

We have several species of British gorgonias, of which perhaps Gorgonia verrucosa, and G. flabellum are the largest and handsomest. These have been kept alive at the Crystal Palace Aquarium for a short time, but there is a difficulty in knowing how to feed

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them, so that they soon die. In the "fan" gorgonia (G. flabellum) the branches run into each other, so as to

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Isis hippuris x 5 (vertical section), showing flesh, with zoophytes investing internal horny axis. a, external appearance.

unite. In Fig. 232, we give a slightly magnified illustration of part of one of the branches. The circular pits, one in the common flesh (Canosarc) which invests the skeleton, and one occupied by the individual polypes. All the British species of this interesting order are exceedingly pretty; although not to be compared with the gorgeous appearance of the sea

fans of tropical seas-so graphically described by Schleiden. We should be glad to see more of them

Fig. 231.

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The Common Sea-fan (Gorgonia flabellum).

kept in our public aquaria, as the dried specimens are very common and well-known; although most

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people, even when generally well educated, know little of what they are. If shown in a tank in the

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Small portion of Gorgonia flabellum, showing pits in cœnosarc,
occupied by Polypes.

living state, this ignorance would vanish at their first sight. In Gorgonia verticillaria the polypes are arranged around the axis like the leaves of such a verticellate plant as the common "goose grass" or "cleavers," The species called pinnata, is not very fan-like in shape, although there needs little effort to see that it belongs to the sea-fans. We have referred particularly to our British species because we think it would be easier to domesticate them in aquaria than foreign species. Some of them are not

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