HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 



" In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas 

 Corpora." — Ovid. Metamorph, i. 



The natural productions which have so long occupied our 

 attention, were denominated Zoophytes because, according to 

 some physiologists, they partook of the nature both of vege- 

 tables and animals, and connected the two kingdoms of 

 organized matter ; or because, as others defined the term, 

 having the outward semblance of sea-plants, they were in 

 reality the formations of little animals or polypes that nestled 

 in the cells or tubes of the zoophyte, to which they were or- 

 ganically and indissolubly connected. 



Little more than a century has elapsed since the first dis- 

 coveries were made, on which these opinions are founded. 



