46 



OPHIUR.E. 



imperfect descriptions they have transmitted of the sub- 

 jects of their observations, there is no question about the 

 identity of any animal Montagu described. It is not 

 merely the copiousness of his descriptions which gives 

 them their peculiar value, though their fulness is a great 

 merit ; nor merely their perspicuity, though that is a still 

 greater merit ; but it is their logical character, that instinc- 

 tive perception of the essential attributes and relations of 

 each species, which is the most important faculty a natu- 

 ralist can possess. Too many of our older naturalists (and 

 can we claim exemption from the fault yet?) described 

 forms as if there could be no creatures existing with which 

 those forms might be confounded ; they wrote of the 

 animals they were characterizing, as if the whole book of 

 Nature was already in print. Montagu was a forward- 

 looking philosopher : he spoke of every creature as if one 

 exceeding like it, yet different from it, would be washed 

 up by the waves the next tide. Consequently his descrip- 

 tions are permanent ; and when he had full opportunities 

 of examining any marine animal, subsequent observers have 

 but little to add to his words. Had Montagu been edu- 

 cated a physiologist, and made the study of Nature his 

 aim, and not his amusement, his would have been one of 

 the greatest names in the whole range of British science. 



The singular animal before us is one of the discoveries 

 of that great naturalist. Its general appearance is so 

 similar to that of the last species that, having specimens of 

 each before, I had put them aside as one, until corrected 

 by my friend Mr. Thompson, avIio, luckily, persisted in 

 the assertion that the Asterias brachiata of Montagu was 

 not the Asterias filiformis of Muller ; and, a close 

 examination of the specimens which he had been so for- 

 tunate as to preserve of the brachiata, showed the minute 



