HISTORY. 03 



while Plumatelln is united with Tuhularia and CeUaria, and many other marine Hydrozoa 

 and Polyzoa, to form, under the name of " Polypiers va()injformcs,'' the second section of the 

 same order. Lamarck enumerates four species of Phtniatella, namely, P. cristata = " Polype 

 a Panache," Trembley ; P. campanulata = " Federbusch-polyp," Rosel ; P. repens = Kamm- 

 polyp," Schaffer ; and P. lucifuga, Vaucher. 



The specific name of fluviatile given by Bruguiere to the only species of the genus 

 Alcyonella, at that time known, was changed by Lamarck into stagnarum, a name cer- 

 tainly more in conformity with the habits of the animal, but one far less expressive than the 

 original name oifungosa given by Pallas, a name which, independently of its appropriateness, 

 ought, in accordance with the rules of priority, and in justice to the memory of Pallas, to be 

 still preserved. 



In his ' Histoire des Polypiers,'* published in 1816, Lamouroux changes Lamarck's name 

 of Plumatdla into that of Naiso, a change entirely uncalled for, and founded on erroneous 

 views of the structure of the genus ; and though Lamouroux retains the name of iMalsa in his 

 'Exposition Methodique,' f published in 1821, Deslongchamps is the only other naturalist I 

 can find who has thought it necessary to adopt it.J 



With the exception of the observations made by Trembley on his " Polype a Panache," 

 when he described a complete alimentary canal and retractor muscles, those by Baker, who 

 gives an exceedingly correct account of the digestive tube in his "Bell-flower animal," and 

 those by Miiller, who correctly describes the same parts in his Tuhularia repens, though he 

 has left us no figure, we find, up to the period of which we now write, no remark of any value 

 on the internal structure of the fresh-water Polyzoa. In the year 1828, however, the attention 

 of naturalists was called to the structure of these animals in a most elaborate memoir pub- 

 lished by Raspail, under the title of ' Histoire Naturelle de I'Alcyonella fluviatile.' § 



Raspail had, a short time before, in conjunction with M. Robineau Desvoidy, presented 

 to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, a memoir on the same animal. This memoir, for a 

 knowledge of which we are solely indebted to Cuvier's report || — for it was never published — 

 contains a most erroneous view of the subject, and maintains that the so-called polypes have no 

 necessary connection with the sponge-like mass of the Alcyonella, and are merely accidental 

 occupants of the cells. 



In the second memoir, however, the author entirely abandons his former opinion. This 

 memoir is characterised by much originality, and, like most of the writings of Raspail, is 

 marked by a complete freedom from the restraints which the authority of previous investigators 

 so generally imposes. Many of his observations, however, are evidently made with inferior 

 instruments, and the memoir is full of hasty generalisations, which the author builds on a far 

 too limited number of facts. Raspail has detected the mouth and anus of Alcyonella ; but 

 though he has had the advantage of the previous observations of Trembley, Baker, and Miiller, 



* Lamouroux, ' Histoire des Polypiers Coralligenes flexibles.' Caen, 1816. 

 t Lamouroux, 'Exposition Metliodique des genres de I'ordre des Polypiers.' Paris, 1821. 

 \ Deslongchamps, ' Encyclopedie Metliodique, Zoophytes,' 1824. 



§ Raspail, Histoire Naturelle de rAlcyonelle fluviatile et des geures voisins. ' Mem. de la Soc. 

 d'Hist. Nat. de Paris/ iv, 1828. 



11 CuviER, ' Hist, des progres des Sci, Nat.,' tome ii. 



