4 NATURAL HISTORY OP 



Peysonnel, and caused tlie Academy at Paris to turn 

 not only a deaf but a disdainful ear to his communica- 

 tion. Peysonnel appears to have been a very modest 

 man, and withal afraid of the reception which his 

 audacious views would meet. He therefore entrusted 

 his notes to Reaumur, who, thinking his young- 

 friend very imprudent, and desiring to shield him 

 from scorn and derision, read the paper to the Society, 

 but kept back the author^s name, and himself not 

 only spoke but wrote against the views of Peysonnel. 

 He did, however, give the latter credit for not writing 

 " entirely from fancy " ! PeysonnePs document, if 

 published at all, is not in existence, and the only 

 record of it is in Reaumur's essay, written against 

 it, and read before the Academy under the title, 

 " Observations upon the formation of Coral and other 

 productions called Stony Plants." 



In this manner, therefore, was the light rejected ; 

 and the subject was not again broached until 1741. 

 In that year Abraham Trembley conducted a series of 

 experiments upon the Hydra, or fresh-water polyp, 

 with respect to its extraordinary recuperative powers, 

 and also discovered Lophopus Crydalllnus, one of the 

 fresh-water polyzoa, which he called, "Polype a 

 panaclie." His experiments attracted considerable 

 attention both in England and on the Continent. In 

 England his researches upon the Hydra were repeated 

 by Baker, who, in 1743, published an elaborate letter* 



* The title-page of this publication is curious. It is as follows : 

 "An attempt towards a natural histor3' of the Polype, in a letter 

 to Martin Folkes, Esq., President of the Roval Society, describing 

 their different species, the places where to seek and how to find 

 them, their wonderful production and increase, the form, structure 

 and use of their several parts, and the manner they catch their 



