64: HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
so that they comprehend under the term Zoophyte, star- 
fishes, sea-urchins, sea-jellies, etc. By British naturalists it 
is employed in a much more limited sense. At first, as we 
have already said, it was employed as the name for creatures 
which from their form were thought to be the connecting 
link betwixt the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and to par- 
take of the nature of both. The name was still retained 
after it had been ascertained that the creatures were de- 
cidedly animal, and partook in no degree of a vegetable na- 
iure. The name, no doubt, originated in the great resem- 
blance which many of them bear to shrubs, mosses, lichens, 
and seaweeds, but it includes many where there is no such | 
resemblance, hinging upon their being polypiferous. And 
it now excludes many included by early writers, such as 
corallines, lithophytes, and nullipores, first, because they 
were not inhabited by polypes, and now, because they are 
known to be vegetables. Sponges also are excluded, for 
though the ancients thought they were sensitive creatures, 
and modern naturalists are beginning to allow that they are 
endowed with life, yet as nothing like polypes has been seen 
inhabiting them, they are not ranked under the name of 
Zoophytes. ‘ Zoophytes,” says Dr. Johnston, “are all aqua- 
tic, avertebrate, inarticulate, soft, irritable, and contractile, 
