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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.
Coral Reefs are found only in tropical regions: although Polyps, animals of the same class as those chiefly instrumental in their formation, are found in all parts of the globe, yet the Reef-Building Polyps are limited to the Tropics. We are too apt to forget that the homes of animals are as definitely limited in the water as on the land.
Enthusiastic philosophers, in order to prove to us the existence of a God, you copy complete treatises on botany; you enter into minute details of the parts of the human body; you ascend into the air to contemplate the revolutions of the stars; you return then to earth to admire the course of the waters; you fly into ecstasies over butterflies, insects, polyps, organized atoms, in which you think to find the greatness of your God; all these things will not prove the existence of this God; they will only prove that you have not the ideas which you should have of the immense variety of causes and effects that can produce the infinitely diversified combinations, of which the universe is the assemblage.
In the Class of Polyps there are but two Orders, the Actinoids and the Halcyonoids; and I have already said so much of the structure of Polyps that I think I need not repeat my remarks here in order to show the relation between these groups.
No trace of any vertebrate had been found there; only starfish, shell-fish, polyps, or trilobites whose kindly descendants he had often bathed with, as a child on the shores of Quincy Bay.
Now in these lowest Polyps, the Actiniae, the tentacles increase with age indefinitely, never ceasing to grow while life lasts, new chambers being constantly added to correspond with them, till it becomes impossible to count their numbers. Next to these come the true Fungidae. They are also single, and though they are stony Corals, they have no share in the formation of Reefs.
"When the nose takes up the work of vicarious elimination, the same mode of treatment is resorted to. The mucous membranes of the nose are now swabbed and sprayed with antiseptics and astringents, or 'burned' by cauterizers, electricity, etc. The polyps are cut out, and frequently parts of the turbinated bone and septum as well, in order to open the air passages.
The three classes of Radiates, beginning with the lowest, and naming them in their relative order, are Polyps, Acalephs or Jelly-Fishes, and Echinoderms or Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins.
From those fertilised eggs grow young polyps, which fix themselves to rocks or weeds, and grow up to bud and multiply by fission, and eventually to produce again by fission a generation of jelly-fishes!
In structure each tiny polyp is little more than a fleshy sac whose mouth is surrounded with petal-like tentacles, or feelers. From the sea water the polyps secrete calcium carbonate and build it up into the stony framework which supports their colonies. Boring mollusks, worms, and sponges perforate and honeycomb this framework even while its surface is covered with myriads of living polyps.
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