10 ACALEPIIS IN GENERAL. Part I. 



The fourth species is umiiistiikaltly the Actinia senilis. Speaking of the fifth species, 

 Avhich is the Rhizostoiua, he compares the disk to a hat, and the eight pendant 

 appendages to the feet of the Octopus. Of the sixtli species, he says that the 

 four feet may l^e compared to Acanthus leaves.^ 



Gessner, in his great Natural History of the Animals, has followed Rondelet for the 

 Acalepha?, as he did for most of the other productions of the Mediterranean ; and also 

 copied his figures and those of Belon, adding only such remarks as exhibit his vast 

 erudition, but in no way a better acquaintance with the animals themselves." 



It has Ijcen a source of constant delight for me, while perusing the works of the 

 earlier naturalists, to sympathize with the genial spirit and the earnestness that 

 pervade their writings, so free from egotism, and animosity against their fellow-students. 

 Their devotion to their studies is equal to the spirit of reverence with which they 

 look upon nature ; and it is disgraceful to our age, that we must contrast with such 

 dispositions the ill-will, the jealousies, the (juarrels for priority, and the profanation, 

 which pervade the discussions of certain modern authors. Moreover, in a systematic 

 point of view, the great naturalists of the sixteenth century deserve to be studied 

 more fully than they have Ix'cn thus tar. It is astonishing, for instance, to see 

 how near Rondelet, in discussing the views of Aristotle upon the affinities of animals, 

 came to perceiving their true aftinities, and their natural classification under four great 

 types. In the 1st Chapter of the 17th Book of his great work, '' Dc Piscibus jVar/i//s," 

 after describing the fishes of the Mediterranean, he says, that having thus descrilx-d 

 the Enaima, — that is, the animals provided with lilood, — he now proceeds to descrilje 

 the Aiiaiiiui, among which he distinguishes the 3LihMa in contradistinction to the HJdcro- 

 (leniiu. These Malakia are the Cephalopoda, to which unfortunately the Medusa" are 

 added on account of the appendages around the mouth, which were compared Ijy 

 him to the ieelers of the cuttle-fish. In Book 18th he treats of the Crustacea under 

 the name of Midulcosiraca, and distinguishes from them the Oslmkodcnnn, or shell fishes, 



Actinia tliau any otlier Medusa has ; but that he did - An interesting notice of the life and writings 



confound the two is phiin from the foHowing words: of Gessner, by Cuvicr, may be found in tlu> Biogra- 



" Saxis aliciuando h;eret, ahquando sohila vagatur." plue univei-selle, V(d. 17, and in the Ilistoire des 



The purple color of the ^Ivpiorea may also have con- sciences naturclles, V(d. 2, p. S3. I would gladly 



tributed to mislead him. also refer to the notice liy Blaiuvillc in his Ilistoire 



^ Here, then, we have for the first time the word des sciences de I'oi-ganisation ; but tliat chapter is so 



pihus (liat) introduced to designate the disk of the interwoven with Jesuitical insinuations as to be utterly 



Medusa^, an expression that has been retained by unpalatable to a sober thinker. The chapter on 



most later writers, while some zoologists liavi^ sub- Acalepha? in the Ilistoria aninialium of Gessner is 



stituted for it the name of iiwhrMi. ov ilid ; while contained in Ibxik 4, l)c pisciura et Aquatilium ani- 



ihe word fi'ct stands for the ajipendages around the niantium natura, jiage 12.30, published in Ziirieh in 



mouth, to which the name anus was afterwards lo58. — Belon's book, dc Aquatilibus, Lib. II., was 



more generally apidied. printed in Paris in 1.353. 



