CORACOID

(Gr. Kopa%, a crow, and tiiot.form.) A name first applied to a small proce of the blade-bone of apes and man, on account of its resemblance to the beak of a crow; and now extended to a large flattened bone pa ing from the shoulder-joint to the sternum in birds, reptiles, and monotremes, and of which the proce above mentioned is the rudimental representative. CORALLl' NA. A name applied by Linna?us to agenus or group of marine organized bodies of arborescent habit, with jointed stems, supported on a kind of root, divided into branches, which are likewise jointed. Neither pores nor polypes are distinguishable on the surface of these beings;their chief purpose in the economy of nature is to prepare during life, and precipitate by their decay, fine particles of carbonate of lime or chalk: they thus lend their aid to the Lithophytous corals in covering submerged land with the elements of a fertile soil, which the expansive subterranean forces may afterwards convert into dry land. CORALLl' [s. 296]