HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 418 



trated with excellent figures ; — his aim being evidently not to 

 entrap our blind assent by a declamatory display of the new 

 wonders opened up in science, but to prove his conclusion to 

 be the true one in the eye of reason and sobriety. He limits 

 his descriptions and remarks to four species, viz. Alcyonium 

 digitatura, Tubularia indivisa, Flustra foliacea, and Cellepora 

 pumicosa, which seem to have been selected as examples of 

 the more remarkable tribes, for it is evident that he had exa- 

 mined many more, but his observations on them were reserved 

 for another memoir, which, I believe, was never written.* — 

 Ileaumur"'s advocacy of the new doctrine was in a more popu- 

 lar style, but not the less excellent. He gave a short exposi- 

 tion of the ascertained facts, — reviewed with the clearness of 

 an eye-witness the discoveries of Trembley, — pointed out 

 their relations to the experiments of Jussieu and Guettard, 

 and how they mutually lent and borrowed strength, — palliated 

 and explained away his former opposition to Pej-ssonnel, — 

 and declared his complete faith in the animality of Zoophytes, 

 and his conviction that a numerous list of productions hitherto 

 unexamined would be found to be of the same nature. " All 



* That Jussieu had ascertained the animality of the Sertulariadae is, I think, in- 

 disputable from the following passage. " II s'en presentoit ensuite quantite de celles 

 qu'on appelle Corallines, les lines pierreuses dans lesquelles je ne remarquai rien, et les 

 autres dont les tiges et les branches, et ce qui passoit pour feiiilles, etoient d'une appa- 

 rence membraneuse, dans lesquelles je decouvris que ce qu'on y prenoit pour feuilles 

 disposees alternativement, ou dans un sens oppose, n'etoit autre chose que de petits 

 tuyaux contenant chacun un petit insecte." Mem. de I'Acad. Roy. des Scan. 1742. 

 p. 292. — Reaumur is still more explicit : " Apres avoir observe dans I'eau memo de 

 la mer plusieiirs especes de ces productions si bien conformees a la maniere des plantes, 

 il vit sortir des bouts de toutes leurs branches et de tous leurs noeuds, ou de toutes 

 leurs articulations, de petits animaux qui, comme les polypes a panache d'eau douce- 

 se donnoient tantot plus, tantot moins de mouvement, qui comme ceux-ci s'epanouis, 

 soient en certains temps, et qui dans d'autres rentroient en entier dans leui' petite cel- 

 lule, hors de laquelle leiir partie posterieure ne se trouvoit jamais. Enfin, il (B. de 

 Jussieu) reconnut que plusieurs especes de ces corps, dont chacun avoit I'exterieur 

 d'une tres-belle plante, n'etoient que des assemblages d'lin nombre prodigieux de 

 cellules de polypes ; en un mot, que plusieurs de ces productions de la mer, que tous 

 les botanistes que les ont decrites ont prises pour des plantes et ont fait representer 

 comme telles avec complaisance, n'etoient que des polypiers." Preface, Vol. vi. p. 71, 

 72. — See also Amoenitates Academicse, Vol. i. p. 185, for an enumeration of the spe- 

 cies of Sertularia, &c., which Jussieu had examined, and considered to be animal 

 productions. His account, however, of the animal of the Sertulariae is altogether 

 erroneous. 



