52 EAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



of those zoophytes, which up to the present time 

 have remained hidden in the sand of Chausey. 

 Setting aside the self-love natural to a discoverer, I 

 venture to affirm that it merits the distinction on 

 more grounds than one. It is a species of Synapta* 

 belonging to a genus of the family of the Holo- 

 thurid^, whose representatives had hitherto been 

 met with only in the warmest seas of the old and 

 new world. Imagine to yourself a rose-coloured 

 crystal cylinder, about eighteen inches in length and 

 one inch in diameter, marked along its whole length 

 by five minute bands of white silk, and surmounted 

 by a pale white living flower, whose twelve petals 

 are gracefully curved backwards. In the midst of 

 these tissues, whose delicate texture seems to surpass 

 the most exquisite products of our industry, you 

 must suppose an intestine of gauze-like tenuity, but 

 completely filled up with large grains of granite, 

 whose fine points and salient angles may be dis- 

 tinctly seen by the naked eye. It was this circum- 

 stance which especially struck me in the animal, for 

 it appeared literally to partake of no other nourish- 

 ment than the coarse sand surrounding it. But 



* I have given to this curious species the name of Synapta Du- 

 vernaea, in honour of my former Professor and much esteemed 

 friend M. Duvernoy, who was a member of the Institute, and a 

 Professor at the Jardin des Plantes and the College de France, As the 

 compatriot of Cuvier, for he was born at Montbelliard, he early 

 attached himself to that illustrious Naturalist, and brought out, in 

 concert with Dumeril, the first edition of the Anatomic Comparec ; at 

 the death of Cuvier, M. Duvernoy succeeded him at the College de 

 France, while he afterwards succeeded M. de Blainville in the chair 

 of Comparative Anatomy at the Museum. 



