THE ANTHOZOA 



To the earliest authors of antiquity the larger and more strik- 

 ing members of the Anthozoa were partly animal, partly vegetable 

 productions, and hence they were known as zoophytes ((^wot/jiTa), 

 a name which is still in popular use. But many of the Anthozoa, 

 particularly those which have conspicuous horny or calcareous 

 skeletons, were for a long time regarded as mineral products, or 

 in some cases were fancifully supposed to have the double nature 

 of plants and minerals. The popular conception of coral was ex- 

 pressed by Ovid in the fourth Ijook of the Meiamorphoses : — 



niuic quoque coralliis eadem natura rcmausit ; 

 duritiam tacto capiant ut ab aere, quodqiie 

 vimen in aequore erat, fiat super aequore saxuni. 



It is true that Aristotle had long before this recognised the 

 animal nature of the ordinary sea-anemones or Actinians, which he 

 described sometimes under the name of " Cnidae," sometimes of 

 " Acalephae " ; the Medusae were also included by him imder the 

 same name. Aristotle's observations on Actinians and Medusae 

 are given in the sixth chapter of the fourth book of the Ili^foria 

 animalium, and it was long before any substantial addition was 

 made to them. Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, regarded the 

 precious coral of commerce as a mineral which, because of its red 

 colour, was comparable to haematite ; but the Gorgonians he con- 

 sidered to be plants. Several of the authors of antiquity fell into 

 the same error of regarding different forms of Anthozoa as plants ; 

 and Pliny, who was acquainted with a considerable number of 

 them, describes some as plants, some as minerals, and others as 

 occupying an intermediate position between the animal and 

 vegetal)le kingdoms. " Equidem et his inesse sensum arbitror 

 quae neque animalium nequc frueticum sed tertiam quamdam ex 

 utroque naturam habent ; urticis dico et spongiis " (Ilisioria 

 nafumlis, lib. ix. ch. 68). 



Amongst the species described by Pliny are several Gorgonians 

 and two forms which he described as marine plants under the 

 names of "Isis crinis" and " Charitoblepharon." They may have 

 been Antipatharia or Pennatidids. 



From the days of Pliny until the sixteenth century no addition 

 was made to the knowledge of the Anthozoa. But we find that 

 the encyclopaedists described and figured Actinians as animals. 

 Kondelet (1534) and Belon (1551) described them in their works 

 de piscihns marinis, and their statements were accepted and repeated 

 by Wotton ( 1 552), Conrad Gesner {de (Kjnafdihus, 1 558), Aldrovandus 

 {Animidia cxshikjuui, Zoophilia, 1606), and John Johnston {de ex- 

 sanfjuilnts aqnaticis, 1657). But the prevailing error which regarded 

 the colonial form.-^ as plants, led to the Anthozoa being chieHy 

 studied by botanists. Lobel, for instance, in 1591 gave drawings 



