32 POPULAR HISTORY OF THE AQUARIUM. 



The engraving occupied three months of the artist's time. 

 No other specimens have yet been founds but there must 

 be others, and the time may yet arrive when we may see 

 EicpledellcB living and flourishing in our zoological tanks ! 



Hi/droid Zoojphytes. 



The word " Zoophyte/' as most of our readers are aware, 

 has been used in a very extended and general sense, to sig- 

 nify those numerous and varied beings which were supposed 

 to occupy a middle position between the animal and vege- 

 table kingdoms. It was applied to many things which were 

 pretty well known in their external characters, but whose 

 real natures were little understood. It was the name of a 

 great miscellaneous group of things which were thrown 

 together, not because they were found to possess qualities 

 in common, but because it was doubtful whether they were 

 animals or vegetables. It is now used in a much more 

 limited sense ; so limited indeed that it will scarcely apply 

 to the objects for which it is alone retained by British Na- 

 turalists, excepting in the appearance of some. Many of 

 the original group, as well as of the present, bear so great 



