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All agree that this was very many thousand years ago. Agassiz tells us that the same species of polyps which are now building coral walls around the present peninsula of Florida actually made that peninsula, and have been building there for many thousand centuries.
Neither do we find the Fungidae, for they, like all low forms, are single, and not confined to one level, having a wider range in depth and extent than other stony Polyps.
'If the polyps should seize you, when you go back through my wood, said the witch, 'just drop a single drop of this liquid on them, and their arms and fingers will burst into a thousand pieces. But the little mermaid had no need to do this, for at the mere sight of the bright liquid, which sparkled in her hand like a shining star, they drew back in terror.
The lowest in structure among the Polyps are not Corals, but the single, soft-bodied Actiniae. They have no solid parts, and are independent in their mode of existence, never forming communities, like the higher members of the class. It might at first seem strange that independence, considered a sign of superiority in the higher animals, should here be looked upon as a mark of inferiority.
In the zoophyte branch, class Alcyonaria, one finds the order Gorgonaria, which contains three groups: sea fans, isidian polyps, and coral polyps. It's in this last that precious coral belongs, an unusual substance that, at different times, has been classified in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms.
Our dragnets brought up many specimens of polyps and echinoderms plus some unusual shells from the branch Mollusca. Captain Nemo's treasures were enhanced by some valuable exhibits from the delphinula snail species, to which I joined some pointed star coral, a sort of parasitic polypary that often attaches itself to seashells.
After I had learned a great many interesting things about the life and habits of the children of the sea how in the midst of dashing waves the little polyps build the beautiful coral isles of the Pacific, and the foraminifera have made the chalk-hills of many a land my teacher read me "The Chambered Nautilus," and showed me that the shell-building process of the mollusks is symbolical of the development of the mind.
The general interest in Corals has called attention to the Polyps, and the accessible haunts of the Sea-Urchins and Star-Fishes have made the Echinoderms almost as familiar to the ordinary observer as the common sea-shells, while the Acalephs are usually to be found at a greater distance from the shore, and are not easily kept in confinement.
The most complete examples of it exist in the polyps and some other low forms, in which each community has become a compound individual, the members remaining attached to the parent stock.
And now let us see what the star-fish thought of the little town and its inhabitants. "Ah, these are your houses!" he said. "Why don't you come out of them, and travel about to see the world?" "These are not our houses, but ourselves," answered the polyps; "we can't come out, and we don't want to.
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