it soon has a mouth, disk and tentacles like the mother; after which
it separates, and starts out in life for itself. Whole colonies of
Anemones are formed in this way.

"But come," said the Pilot. "Here we have spent all this time talking
about the Anemones, and the coral is far more interesting 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 important of the coral polyps live in groups,
or colonies. They usually reproduce themselves 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 example by producing a bud which becomes
a coral flower. And so it goes on until there is a whole colony of
animals, each one having a separate mouth and stomach for his support,
and yet continuing as a part of the family.

"I told you that the Anemones and Coral Polyps were first cousins, and
so they are, for almost the only difference between them is that the
Anemones have no coral in their make-up. Then too, the Coral Polyps
cannot move about like the Anemones, and they are somewhat different
in appearance, being more like lovely daisies, or stars, than
chrysanthemums.

"The coral is made from the lime of which the water of the ocean
contains a large quantity, and is hidden in the sides and lower part
of the polyp, there being none in the stomach and disk. When the polyp
dies the fleshy part decays, and the coral, which is the skeleton of