you on the Turritella), and of those larger ones also who burrow in
the thick hide of the whale, and, borne about upon his mighty
sides, throw out their tiny casting nets, as this Pyrgoma does, to
catch every passing animalcule, and sweep them into the jaws
concealed within its shell. And this creature, rooted to one spot
through life and death, was in its infancy a free swimming animal,
hovering from place to place upon delicate ciliae, till, having
sown its wild oats, it settled down in life, built itself a good
stone house, and became a landowner, or rather a glebae adscriptus,
for ever and a day. Mysterious destiny! - yet not so mysterious as
that of the free medusoid young of every polype and coral, which
ends as a rooted tree of horn or stone, and seems to the eye of
sensuous fancy to have literally degenerated into a vegetable. Of
them you must read for yourself in Mr. Gosse's book; in the
meanwhile he shall tell you something of the beautiful Madrepores
themselves. His description, (10) by far the best yet published,
should be read in full; we must content ourselves with extracts.

"Doubtless you are familiar with the stony skeleton of our
Madrepore, as it appears in museums. It consists of a number of
thin calcareous plates standing up edgewise, and arranged in a
radiating manner round a low centre. A little below the margin
their individuality is lost in the deposition of rough calcareous
matter. . . . The general form is more or less cylindrical,
commonly wider at top than just above the bottom. . . . This is but
the skeleton; and though it is a very pretty object, those who are
acquainted with it alone, can form but a very poor idea of the
beauty of the living animal. . . . Let it, after being torn from
the rock, recover its equanimity; then you will see a pellucid
gelatinous flesh emerging from between the plates, and little