SOJSE ANIMAL ARCHITECTS. 133 



the zoologist of to-day selects the latter animals as the type 

 of the great class of coral-producing animals. 



It is no easier task to root out and supplant long-estab- 

 lished beliefs in science than in the ordinary affairs of life ; 

 and Peysonnel found to his cost that to play the role of a con- 

 scientious observer and reformer is by no means a labour of 

 easy or enviable kind. Re'aumur, whose discovery of the 

 animal nature of the sea-anemones might have been supposed 

 to have given him a peculiar aptitude for criticising Peyson- 

 nel's observations after a just fashion, was one of the first 

 to condemn the young student of Marseilles ; and other 

 Academicians followed in wholesale condemnation of the 

 revolutionary tendencies of PeysonnePs discovery. Dis- 

 gusted with the treatment shown towards him by the Acade- 

 micians whose accredited emissary he was, Peysonnel sailed 

 for the Antilles, engaged in the profession of a naval surgeon, 

 and forwarded to the Royal Society of London the results of 

 his further researches on the coral-polypes. To this day, 

 Peysonnel's observations remain in manuscript in the library 

 of the Natural History Museum at Paris ; but it is satisfactory 

 to learn that the ill-treated savant lived long enough to find 

 the truth and worth of his discoveries fully admitted. Cer- 

 tain experiments of Trembley, published in 1744, upon those 

 peculiar fresh-water polypes, the hydrse, led to the recognition 

 of these plant-like beings as true animals. The lists of plant- 

 like forms were next overhauled, with the result of demon- 

 strating the animal nature of many organisms which were 

 formerly included within the botanist's domain, and amongst 

 these new-found animals were the coral-polypes, whose exact 

 nature Peysonnel had demonstrated many years before. 



The animal nature of the coral-producing beings having 

 thus been demonstrated, their place in the animal series 

 may in the next instance be briefly referred to. As already 

 remarked, the common sea-anemone of our coasts may be 

 selected as the type of the coral-animals, as far as the 

 structure of its soft parts is concerned. The anemones, 

 as every sea-side visitor knows, do not manufacture or secrete 



