Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore

“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 exquisitely formed and coloured tentacula, with white clubbed tips fringing the sides of the cup-shaped cavity in the centre, across which stretches the oval disc marked with a star of some rich and brilliant colour, surrounding the central mouth, a slit with white crenated lips, like the orifice of one of those elegant cowry shells which we put upon our mantelpieces. The mouth is always more or less prominent, and can be protruded and expanded to an astonishing extent. The space surrounding the lips is commonly fawn colour, or rich chestnut-brown; the star or vandyked circle rich red, pale vermilion, and sometimes the most brilliant emerald green, as brilliant as the gorget of a humming-bird.”