put in to refit there. At the fame time there was a variety
of this fpecies found that was perfectly white.
XI. C O R A L L I N A. C O R A L L I N E
Artimal crefcens habitu
■ planice.
Stirps fix a, e tubis ca-
pillaribus per crufiam calcar
earn porofam fefe exfe-
rentibus, compojita.
Rami fcepe articulatiy
t>er ramuloji, vel di-
varicati, liberi vel con-
glutinati et connexi.
Is an animal growing in the
form of a plant;
whofe ftem is-fixt to other
bodies, and is compofed o f
capillary tubes-,- whofe extremities
pafs through a calcareous
cruft, and open into
pores on the furface.
The branches are often
jointed, and always fubdivided
into fmaller branches ; which
are either loofe and unconnected,
or joined as i f they
were glued together.
This genus has been thought by fome late writers to
belong entirely to the vegetable kingdom, and to difFer
but little from Fucus’s and Conferva’s : but as Dr. Linnaeus
obferves, in a note on this genus in his Syftem of
Nature, p. 1304. “ Corallinas ad regnum animale perti-
“ nere ex fubftantia earum calcarea conftat, cum omnem
“ calcem animalium effe produdtum veriffimum fit.” "
Or, that all calcareous fubftances are moft truly of animal
production ; therefore that Corallines, confiding of that
fubftance, do belong to the animal kingdom.
What or where the link is that unites the animal and
vegetable kingdoms of Nature, np one has yet been able
to
to point out ; fome of thefe Corallines appear to come
the neareft to it of any thing that has occurred to me in
all my refearches : but then the calcareous covering,
though ever fo thin, fliews us that they cannot be_vegetables.
The white'mealy furface of fome of the Lichens
would induce one to think them covered with a calcareous
matter : but chemiftry fhews us it is no more of a
calcareous- nature than the mealy whitenefs on the leaves
and bloffoms of the Auricula urfi.
The minutenefs of the pores of Corallines, though as
fmall as thofe of fome plants, is no proof of their being
vegetables ; becaufe there may be fuckers that come,
through thefe pores, which our glaffes cannot difcover ;
or perhaps they may be like the pores of fponges, contrived
in fuch a manner as to fuck in and throw out
the water. Let us obferve the pores of the Millepores,
and we fhall find them equally as fmall in many fpecies
as thofe of the- Corallines; and yet thefe are univerfally
allowed to be of the animal kingdom.
For a more particular enquiry into this fubjedt, I fhall
refer the reader to the Philofophical Tranfadtions, Vol. 57.
pag. 404. where I have fully explained this matter, in a
letter to Dr. Linnaeus.
1. Corallina tridens.
Corallina trichotoma
articulata, articulis com-
prejfis planis trilobis.
"Trident Coralline. T a b .20.
. '• j ^IG. 3*
This Coralline is jointed,
and branches out into a divifion
of three; the joints are com-
preffed, with three flat lobes.
T a b. 20. F i g . a.
This was found by John Greg,
the new ceded Iflands.
Efq. on the coaft of
2. Corallina