526 SUPPLEMENT 
It is not certain whether his Pnewmon be a medusa, as 
some authors assure us, and not a testaceum. As to his 
tethys, it is evident that they are our ascidie. 
Pliny, as might be well imagined, has not added much to 
what Aristotle has said, concerning the zoophytes. He has 
confined himself to translating the Greek names of urchins, 
sea-stars, nettles, and sponges, by those of echinz, stelle ma- 
rine, urtice marine, and spongie, without adding any thing 
to the little said by Aristotle. Neither has he, any more than= 
the Greek philosopher, made use of the term zoophytes, 
though he has most certainly declared that these beings were 
neither plants nor animals, but something of an intermediate 
nature. 
Nor has Alian employed this denomination of zoophytes, 
or animal plants; and if we do find in different parts of his 
collection, the names of urchins, sea-stars, marine lungs, it 
is only in relation to some peculiarities, altogether insignifi- 
cant, and even completely erroneous. 
Oppian, in his poem on fishing, has introduced nothing 
more respecting these animals, than the authors which pre- 
ceded him. 
Sextus Empiricus appears to have really been the author 
who first employed the term zoophytes ; but it does not seem 
that he did so for the purpose of indicating the beings which 
Aristotle regarded as intermediate between animals and ve- 
getables. He tells us that they are beings which are found 
in the roads, and are produced by fire. 
Isidore de Seville, and much later, Albertus Magnus, em- 
ployed this expression for the true zoophytes; but these 
writers have added nothing to the observations of the ancients 
on the natural history of the animals. The first translators of 
Aristotle, Budeus, and Theodore Gaza, also employed it, 
and since their time, it has been generally adopted. 
