Gray on Sponges, 47 



to discover the slightest trace of mobility, therefore if it exist it 

 has escaped the notice of these naturalists ; the only modern author 

 who appears to have thought he observed any motion, is Montagu, 

 see Wernerian Transactions, vol. ii. On the revival of learning the 

 only author who regarded them as animals was Nuremberg, in his 

 Historia Natures, published in 1635, which is only a compilation 

 of the ancient authors ; but all those who would examine for them- 

 selves considered them as vegetables, among whom there are Bau- 

 Mne, Ray, Tournefort, Morisson, Boerhaave, Seba, Vaillant, 

 Marsilli, and even Linnceus himself, in the prior edition of his 

 works, classed them as plants ; and Forskall, one of the most dis- 

 tinguished of his pupils, and a most excellent zoologist, persevered 

 in this theory even after the change of opinion of his master, pro- 

 duced by the beautiful discovery of Peyssonell, Trembly, and 

 Ellis. From this period, which was about a century after the pub- 

 lication of Nuremberg, they were again placed in the animal king- 

 dom, but only on account of the analogy of their appearance and 

 manner of life, and not from the known existence of the animals, 

 as may be known by the character which this zoologist has given 

 to the genus. Linnceus appears, like the ancients, to have consi- 

 dered them as animals themselves, respiring water, for he thus cha- 

 racterizes them in the last edition of his Systema Natura?, " SroN- 

 gia. Flores (Foraminibus respirat aquam,) Stirps radicata, pilis 

 contexta, plexitis, bibula." After this period the zoologists were 

 attracted by the gelatinous coat, first mentioned by Ellis,* which 

 they appear to consider as an animal substance ; for thus Pallas^ 

 in 1766, characterized this genus : — Spongia : animal ambiguum, 

 crescens, torpidissimum. Stirps polymorpha, fibris contexta, ge- 

 latina viva obvestitis. Oscula (flores Lin) oscillantia seu cavern* 

 cellulaeve superficiei. Solander and Ellis, in their Zoophites, in 



* Ellis, in his Corallines, thought that the pores were tubes, and contained 

 the animals as in tubularia, &c. for he observes that they are formed of a reti- 

 culated mass of lubes ; and " in viewing the extremites of the upper or last 

 shoots we shall perceive small openings at the end of their fibres, and as we 

 trace the fibres back from the opening downwards we see a soft whitish sub- 

 stance which fills the internal part of all the ramifications through the whole 

 sponge;" he continues to observe they "are doubtless the lodgments of animals 

 of a particular class ;" but this he appears to have given up in his Zoophites. 



