nOUOHTON ON THE TnAKSLATtON OF ARISTOTLE. 413 



to tlieir being handled, are scarcely appreciable in the case of the 

 Actiniae, unless it be to a few tender-skinned ladies.* 



Tlie following piece, of criticism is interesting on account of its 

 curiosity. 



" The Holothuria has also been misunderstood by the translator. 

 It is a Medusoid animal, and has no relation to the animals which 



have obtained that name in modern times The free Holothuria 



and the adherent sponge agree in this, that they are incapable of 

 locomotion. If this is not strictly true of the Medusa, it holds good 

 of some other animals!'''' In other words, the Holothurion is a 

 Medusoid animal, but it is not, because this latter creature is capable 

 of locomotion ; therefore it must be something else ! 



There was nothing extraordinary in my suggesting that the b\o- 

 QovpLov might signify either the Echinoderm of that name, or the 

 Aleyonium digitatum. I am more inclined to the latter opinion, be- 

 cause the possible etymology of the term (from oXog, " whole," and 

 dvpioy, " a little door,") may be of some smaU value in helping us 

 to refer it to the Aleyonium^ with its numerous little polygonal 

 depressions.f 



The Reviewer then proceeds to notice "two other mistakes :" he 

 gives us, however, only one (?) " The gnat and the oistros are not 

 different animals, but different states of the same animal." Why, 

 then, does Aristotle name both the gnat (efxirig) and the olarpog 

 together as dipterous insects which have a sting in their head? 

 (i.v. §5.) 



Scarcely less satisfactory is the Reviewer's attempt to explain 

 Aristotle's opinion with regard to the animal nature of the sponge ; 



* " The ancient Greeks inclticled nncler the name oi Aoalepha both the Medusa 

 and the Actinea ; and, indeed, they closely approach in organization. When, how- 

 ever, we are told by Aristotle, after he has distinctly described the common rock- 

 m\\ohiimgActineeE, that there is a kind which detaches itself at night from the rocks, 

 we must not suppose (as has been hitherto conjectured) that he confounded the two 

 animals — the floating 3Iednsa and the fixed Actinea — and had mistaken the fonner 

 for a state of the latter. In the Greek seas, and especially on the coast of Lycia, 

 there are true Aciineee, which are equally at home fixed to the rock and swimming 

 about the sea, even far from land." (Trav. in Lycia, ii. p. 120.) The authors 

 have figured some species of floating Actinea, of which also an interesting account 

 is given (p. 121). 



f " The Holothurias are exceedingly sluggish creatm-es, but scarcely so much 

 so as to pennit our considering them to be identical with the creatm-es called Holo- 

 thurice by the ancients, which are said by Aristotle to be motionless and of a nature 

 between the anhnal and the plant, and to differ from sponges only in their being 

 detached. May he not have had in view the large, round, sponge-like S-pongodium, 

 li\'ing free on the sea-bed, and abundant in the Greek seas ? This is the more 

 likely, since (in the fourth book and eighth chapter of the ' History of Animals,') 

 he mentions the Holothuria of modern naturalists distinctly, when he states that 

 experienced fishennen assert they have speared, when fishing, black, round, cylin- 

 drical animals like pieces of wood ; a description which cannot be mistaken, since 

 it exactly appUes to the common Greek sea-cucumbers." — L>jria, pp. 117, 11 8. 



2F2 



