30 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
every one who had a respect for the memory of the de- 
ceased brought a stone to add to the heap. Very willingly 
then would we, as a humble member of the Zoophytic 
clan, add our stone to the cairn of the chieftains that have 
gone before us, and if in our poverty we have nothing fresh 
to contribute, we will lift the stone which our masters have 
added, and having held it up and looked at it with reverence, 
we shall respectfully return it to the venerable cairn. In 
this brief sketch, as in almost everything else in this little 
work, I shall chiefly draw from my respected friend Dr. George 
Johnston, whose admirable work on British Zoophytes is so 
well known and so much valued in the scientific world. 
Those natural productions to which our attention is to be 
directed were called zoophytes, it is probable, at a time when 
it was thought by many that they were a connecting link 
betwixt the animal and the vegetable kingdoms ; that though 
it could no longer be denied that they contained animals, 
yet that they were indebted for their growth to an inherent 
principle of vegetation. The name, though no longer re- 
garded as appropriate in this sense, may still be retained as 
suitable for some of them at least, as having the outward 
appearance of sea-plants, but being in reality formed by the 
little polypes inhabiting their numerous tubes or cells. 
