ON THE USE OF SOME WORDS ii 



to many of the corals and other hving organisms which have 

 a plant-hke form or method of growth. According to Milne- 

 Edwards the first record of its use in this sense is to be 

 found in an edition of the writings of Elien by P. Gyllius, 

 1535- ill which these words occur, " Plinius urticam et 

 spongiam numerat inter ^co6(f)VTa." ^^'hatever may have 

 been the more restricted application of the meaning of the 

 term in the days of the classical writers, we find it applied 

 in the eighteenth century to all the Corals, Hydroids, 

 Gorgonians, Polyzoa, coral Algae, and even to some of the 

 Protozoa {e.g. Vorticella) and Rotifera {e.g. Brachionus). 

 The general idea underlying the use of the term was that 

 these things were neither wholly animal nor wholly vegetable 

 in nature but in some respects animal and in other respects 

 vegetable. 



In this connexion a view expressed by Rumphius is of 

 some interest. He gives a description of a marine product 

 which he found at Amboyna (probably a Cavernularia) 

 called the " Phallus marinus," and, in describing its position 

 in the classes, says that in the element of the water there 

 are things which are hardly animals or plants but seem to 

 be the relics of primordial chaos, and among these there 

 are living, growing, and mineral things, such as plants 

 which are alive, stars which grow, and animals which resemble 

 plants.^ 



Pallas ^ was of opinion that Nature connects together 

 even the most different things and thus has brought together 

 the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms in the form of the 

 Zoophyta, for these things combine the nature of animals 

 with the nature and form of plants. 



In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the 

 current views of the nature of the Zoophytes were shaken 

 by the publication of the remarkable observations and 

 experiments of Trembly on the freshwater Hydra and of 

 Ellis on certain Hydroids at " Brighthelmstone in Sussex " 

 and on Alcyonaria at Whitstable. To Peyssonnel, how- 

 ever, must be given the credit of having been the first to 



1 See heading of Chapter III. p. 2^. 

 - Pallas, Elenchiis zoophytorum, Sections xv., xvi., xvii., xviii. 



