14r Illustrations in British Zoology : — 



Schlosser, or of Gaertner, whose name is immortalised by his 

 work on seeds, sufficiently precise or distinctly announced to 

 invalidate the received notions ; so that we may safely assert 

 that, previously to the year 1815, no naturalist had even sus- 

 pected that the individuals of the compound y^Icyonia pos- 

 sessed any more complicated organisation than zoophytes in 

 general. 



At the commencement of the year just mentioned, Savigny 

 read to the French Institute a memoir which at once over- 

 turned the established opinion, and which, while it forms, 

 from the newness and importance of its matter, an epoch in 

 the history of invertebrate animals, was also of great utility in 

 directing the attention of naturalists to a department which 

 had lain long uncultivated. By a series of the most delicate 

 dissections, exhibited in engravings of equal delicacy and 

 beauty, Savigny proved that very many of the compound 

 -41cy6nia possessed inmates whose structure was such as to 

 give them a claim to be enrolled in the class Mollusca : and 

 the claim, although still disputed by many, has been allowed 

 by the most illustrious naturalist of modern, perhaps of any, 

 times. Savigny, at all events, showed that these minute 

 creatures were organised very differently from the gelatinous 

 polype or hydra ; and that, instead of a simple stomach for its 

 only viscus, they had both thoracic and abdominal viscera, 

 two separate apertures for these viscera, special organs of 

 generation, and, in some, he thought, vessels and traces of a 

 circulating system were by no means equivocal. 



Of the productions which were the subject of Savigny*s 

 dissections and enquiries, there are several species in the 

 British seas, which the reader will find enumerated in Dr. 

 Fleming's history of our native animals; and I believe that 

 the two to be figured for the present series of Illustrations are 

 additions to his list. They had, when recent, so much resem- 

 blance to a fig, that it was not doubted that one of them, at 

 least, would prove to be identical with the y^lcyonium ficus 

 of Ellis; but a closer examination showed the contrary. 

 The naturalist, however, will not find, in our rude dissections 

 and figures, the various organs exhibited with the clearness 

 and definiteness they have in the engravings of Savigny : 

 what the artist saw was correctly drawn, and, if they are found 

 sufficient for specific discrimination, my object is accom- 

 plished. It may merely be remarked, that, in one, I could 

 perceive, in the large thoracic cavity, traces of a netlike 

 structure on the walls, similar to some of those figured by 

 Savigny, and sufficient to convince me of his general accuracy ; 

 but they are not shown in our figure, as the appearances were 



