HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 



aitllior when he laid it before the Academy, with the benevo- 

 lent intention doubtless of shielding him from the scorn and ri- 

 dicule that might possibly be the lot of one who had ventured 

 to contradict the observations of an Italian Count, and to oppose 

 the established belief;* and he mimediately afterwards read, 

 before the same academicians, an essay of his own, in which he 

 opposed the theory of Peyssonnel with numerous objections, 

 and attempted to explain the growth of coral in accordance to 

 the admitted principles of vegetable physiology.f 



The memoir in which Peyssonnel originally proposed his doc- 

 trine does not appear to have been published : the only account 



1 have seen of it is contained in the essay of Reaumur just al- 

 luded to. He maintained that what Marsiofli had described as 

 the blossoms of coral, were true animals or insects analogous to 

 the Actiniae or sea-anemonies ; that the coral was secreted in a 

 fluid form by the inhabitant Actinise, and became afterwards 

 fixed, hard, and changed into stone ; and that all other stony 

 sea-plants, and even sponges, are the work of different insects, 

 particular to each species of these marine bodies, which la- 

 bour uniformly according to their nature, and as the Supreme 

 Being has ordered and determined. Reaumur remarks, that 

 these opinions were not entirely the offspring of fancy : it would 

 have been more candid and just had he said they were simply 

 the convictions of a practical naturalist, who had long and pa- 

 tiently studied the productions in question, in their native sites 

 on the coasts of France and of Barbary. Peyssonnel had seen 

 the polypes of coral and of the madrepores ; he recognized their 

 resemblance to the naked animal flowers; he had witnessed 

 their motions, — the extension of their tentacula, and the con- 

 traction and opening of the oral aperture ; he ascertained, that, 

 unlike flowers, they were to be found the same at all seasons ; 



* " L'cstime que j'ai pour M. Peyssonnel me fit meme eviter de la nommer 

 pour I'auteur d'un sentiment qui ne pouvoit manquer de paroitre trop hasarde." 

 — Reaumur. 



f Observations sur la formation du corail, et des autres productions appellees 



Plantes pierreuses. Par M. de Reaumur " II prend pour une Plants I'ecorce 



grossiere et sensible du corail, tres-distincte de ce que nous appellons corail, et 

 de plus une autre ecorce bcaucoup plus fine, et que les yeuxne distinguent point 

 do la vraye substance coralline qu'elle revet ; et tout le reste du corail, presque 

 toute la substance coralline n'est qu'imc pierre sans organisation." — Hist, de 

 I'Acad. Roy. des Sc. 17"27. p. 51. and more particularly his own memoir in the 

 same vol. p. 380. 



