156 Mr. J. D. Dana on Zoophytes. 



a Gorgonia, though merely a cluster of naked stems, as seen in 

 our cabinets, consists, when in the water, of as many crowded 

 spikelets of flowers. Thus it is with all zoophytes. Nothing 

 could be more untrue than the night-mare dreams of a favourite 

 poet * : — 



" Shapeless they seem'd, but endless shapes assumed ; 

 Elongated like worms, they writhed and shrunk 

 Their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions." 



And again, they are described as issuing from the coral, like 



" capillary swarms 

 Of reptiles horrent as Medusa's snakes." 



Polyps are not writhing worms. The choicest garden does not 

 produce flowers of more graceful figure or gayer colours than 

 those of the zoophyte reef; and we may add too, that the birds 

 of the groves will not rival the rich tints of the fishes that sport 

 among the coral branches. The coral tree is without verdure, 

 but there is full compensation in its perpetual bloom. 



It is not surprising that these resemblances should have misled 

 early investigators. For a long period only the external forms of 

 zoophytes were known, and every analogy observed authorized 

 their arrangement with plants j\ The discovery of the flowers 

 or seed of corals was yet to be made to prove the identity ; and 

 at last, Marsigli, an active explorer of the Mediterranean, came 

 forward with this veritable discovery itself, and published figures 

 of " lesfleurs du cor ail " — the coral blossoms J. Other discoveries 

 followed : but it was soon shown that these flowers were gifted 

 with the attributes of animal life. This observation is said to 

 have been first made by Ferrante Imperato, a naturalist of Naples, 

 who published his ( Historia Naturale ' in 1599 §. It was however 

 demonstrated independently, as is believed, and more thoroughly, 

 by Peyssonel, who wrote an elaborate memoir on certain species 

 examined by him in the West Indies ||. But before a transfer of 



* Montgomery's Pelican Island. 



f Among the authors who arranged corals with the vegetable kingdom 

 are Dioscorides, Caesalpin, Bauhin, Ray, Geoffroy, Tournefortand Marsigli. 



I Marsigli, Physique de la Mer, Amsterdam, 1725. His first observa- 

 tions were made in 1706. 



§ See Blainville's Manuel d'Actinologie, p. 14. 



|| Peyssonel's Memoir covers 400 pages of manuscript. It was sent to 

 the Royal Society in 1751, and an abstract of it was read, which appeared 

 in the ' Transactions ' for 1753 (vol. x. of the Abridgement). The memoir, 

 though for many years supposed to be lost, is still extant in the library of 

 the museum at Paris ; and a late notice of it by M. Flourens may be found 

 in the ' Annales des Sciences Naturelles,' 2nd ser. ix. 334, 1838. 



Dr. J. Parsons made a laboured and apparently successful reply to Peys- 

 sonel before the Royal Society in 1752, in which he argues ah ignorantid : 

 " It would seem to me much more difficult to conceive that so fine an ar- 

 rangement of parts, such masses as these bodies consist of, and such regular 



