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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: these living atomies.
I myself should be inclined to doubt that this is the case with
zoophytes, having found water in which they were growing (unless,
of course, sea-weeds were present) to be peculiarly ready to become
foul; but it is difficult to say whether this is owing to their
deoxygenating the water while alive, like other animals, or to the
fact that it is very rare to get a specimen of zoophyte in which a
large number of the polypes have not been killed in the transit
home, or at least so far knocked about, that (in the Anthozoa,
which are far the most abundant) the polype - or rather living
mouth, for it is little more - is thrown off to decay, pending the
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