BRITI8II ZOOPHYTES. 13 



lie gives a list and descinbes a number of British 

 Zoophytes. About this time also, the first step was 

 taken towards a proper separation of the different 

 constituents of the order Zoophyta, which resulted in 

 the rejection of that name, and in the ultimate adoption 

 of the present system of classification. The Actinias 

 were never really included amongst the Zoophyta, 

 and Cuvier had already separated the Alcyonian from 

 the Sertularian polyps ; but the distinctions between 

 what are now known as the Polyzoa and the Hydroida 

 were not recognized. These distinctions, however, as 

 soon as perceived, were carefully examined and defined. 

 In 1827, Grant, in a paper read before the Wernerian 

 Society on the structure of Flustrge, pointed out some 

 differences between the polyps of the Flustrae and the 

 Sertularige, but he does not seem to have fully observed 

 the intestinal system of the former. 



In the following years Messieurs Milne-Edwards 

 and Audouin, in France, pursued the same line of 

 investigation, and, independently of Grant, described 

 the structure of the Flustrge. Mr. J. V. Thompson, 

 in Ireland, was at this time pursuing a careful course 

 of study of the marine productions of the Irish coast, 

 and in 1830 he published a complete description of 

 the polyps of BoiverbanMa, Valkeria cuscuta, and other 

 forms. He named these polyps "Polyzoa." In 1834, 

 Ehrenberg published a memoir on the Corals of the 

 Ked Sea, in which he divided the polyps into Anthozoa 

 and Bryozoa, the latter term being synonymous with 

 the term " Polyzoa " of Thompson. The term Bryozoa 

 had been previously used by Ehrenberg, in 1831, in a 

 number of the " Symbolse Physicae;'^ but the appli- 

 cation of the term Polyzoa to the non-hydroid polyps 



