ON ZOOPHYTES. 527 
Wotton, in the very remarkable work which he published 
upon animals, also employs the same word for the same be- 
ings. In fact, his zoophytes comprehend the tethys, the 
holothuriz, the star-fish, the sea-lungs, the sea-nettles, and 
the sponges. In the same author the expression purgamenta 
maris, is to be found for a division of beings, with the rela- 
tions of which he was not acquainted. 
From that period, all the naturalists, at the revival of 
letters, employed the classic denomination of zoophytes; 
but there was always some uncertainty in the application 
which they made of the names left by the ancients, to the 
objects which they had under their immediate eye. Moreover, 
they ranged among the zoophytes, animals of classes alto- 
gether different, which they designated by names derived from 
some rude resemblance with terrestrial beings. Thus Belon 
placed there the anatife, or pollicipes, with the sponges ; the 
holothuriz, and the tethys, which he appears to have known 
very little, and confounded together, although his tethys is 
evidently an ascidia. On the contrary, he ranged the sea- 
nettles, a denomination which he reserved for the actiniz, 
among the mollusca, in the same manner as he treated of the 
urchins, and sea-stars, among the testacea, specifying them, 
however, in a tolerably complete manner. 
Rondelet, a short time after, in adopting the same divisions, 
made pretty nearly the same confusion; but he began to make 
known, not only some new species, but some animals of 
genera altogether new. He applied, in a definite manner, 
the denomination of holothuria, to the animals which we 
know at the present day under this name. Nevertheless, he 
placed one species among the sea-nettles, and on the other 
hand, referred to holothuria, a species of firola. He clearly 
distinguished the tethyes, which are the ascidiz of the present 
day ; and he applied, in a definitive manner, the name of free 
sea-nettles to the meduse, and that of fixed sea-nettles to 
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