39

ram= He placed it in !age wird toil of water ;

and carried thh ;add on *Kee ; where he foon con-
vinced Dr. Akanius, by his own eyes, that coral is
a mafs of asimals of the polypi-kind.
Monf. Douai has written to me, that be has she.
roughly kfisfied hinsfelf by his laft oblervations, that
the polypes arc fazed to their cells ; of which he had
before doubted. What he fays afterwards of coral
appears to me to expels with more truth and pre-
cdion what we ought to think of this kind of ani-
mals, dam my tithe dekriptices, which have been
given fince thc new dile:waits have changed our
fentiments on that fubjetl. Polype-beds, and the
cells, which they contain, are commonly (poker; of
as bring the work of polypes. They are comprod
to the honeymmb nude by bees. It is mom mad
to flay, that coral, and other coralline bodies, have
the fame relation to the polyp. united to them, that
there I. between the fhell of a food and thc fnail
Will, or between the bones of an animal, and the
anima/ itfelf. Monf Donaffs words are as follow.
I am now of opinion, that coral is nothing elfe
than a real animal, which has a my great Dumber
of heads. I confider the polypes of coral only at
the heads of the animal. This animal has a bone
minified in the dupe of a throb. This bone is
covered with kind of firth, which is the flefh
" of the animal. Aly obfervatiors have difcovcred
to me (coeval analogies between thc animals of
kinds approaching to this. neer are, fix inkance,
a. keratophyu, which do not differ from coal, ex-
. cepa us the bone or part, that forms the Fop of the
" aoon,l. In the coral it is teflamous, and in the
keratophyta it is horny."
Iz The

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