CLASS II. 
POLYES: (2OLTPT)*. 
Poyps are gelatinous, oblong or conical animals with a con- 
tractile body, an intestinal cavity and an oral aperture, which is 
surrounded by a circlet of arms or tentacles. 
Besides these arms there are no special organs of sense, at least 
in the greater number of Polyps, though all appear to be very sensi- 
ble of the stimulus of light. Propagation is effected partly by eggs, 
partly by germs or buds: in many instances the last are not de- 
tached from the parent stem, and thus there arise compound animals, 
different individuals being connected. 
Our Polyps were, for the most part, unknown to the ancients: 
and under this name entirely unknown. By it they understood 
naked molluscs of the form of sepia, especially that genus which 
is now called Octopus? by Zoologists. From analogy, and from 
some resemblance of form, R¥AUMUR and JuSsIEU first gave the 
1 Of the numerous works on this class we are content to quote the following : 
A. TREMBLEY, Mémoires pour servir & V Histoire dune genre de Polypes d’eau douce, 
a bras en forme de cornes. Leide, 1744, 4to. 
J. Enis, An Essay towards a Natural History of the Corallines and other Marine 
Productions, &c. Lond. 1755, 4to, with plates. 
J. Eviis and D. SoLaNDER, The Natural History of many curious and uncommon 
Zoophytes, with 62 plates. London, 1786, 4to. 
P. S. Patxas, Elenchus Zoophytorum. Hage Comitum, 1766. 
F. Cavouini, Memorie per servire alla storia de’ Polipi Marini. Napoli, 1785, 4to. 
E. J. C. Esper, Die Pflanzenthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur. 111. Thle. 
Niirnberg, 1761—1797 (with two supplements). 
W. Rapp, Ueber die Polypen im Allgemeinen und die Actinien insbesondere. Weimar, 
1829, m. 3 color. Kupfertafeln, 4to. 
C. G. EnRENBERG, Die Corallenthiere des rothen Meeres. Physikalische Abhand- 
lungen der Konigl. Akad. der Wissenschaften zw Berlin aus dem Jahre 1832, s. 225 
—380. (Also published separately, Berlin, 1834, 4to.) 
G. Jounston, History of British Zoophytes. Second edition, with numerous illus- 
trations on copper and wood. 2 vols. 8vo, 1847. 
2 The French name Poulpe now given to this animal is merely a corruption of the 
ancient name Polypus. 
