THE 



BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 



WHEN the word " Zoophyte" began to be used by 

 naturalists, it designated a miscellaneous class of beings, which 

 were believed to occupy a space between the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms, and where the characteristics of the sub- 

 jects of each kingdom met and were intermingled. They 

 were of a " middle nature," not because of their outward 

 resemblance to plants, but because they were deficient in the 

 more obvious qualities of animals. Almost insensible and 

 immotive, their weak and obscure life was regarded as one 

 merely of vegetation, engendered in them by putrefaction 

 or fermentation, and unsusceptible of the volitions and pas- 

 sions which move and agitate higher entities. Thus the 

 term indicated a mingled life or constitution, and had no 

 reference to figure ; but, some time after, when it had been 

 allowed on all hands that the productions in question were 

 altogether animal, another class of objects, hitherto registered 

 amongst vegetables, was ascertained to be also of animal 

 origin ; and as their similitude to mosses and lichens, to sea- 

 weeds and mushrooms, was undeniable, and indeed so remark- 

 able as to have long veiled their nature from us, then the 

 term " Zoophyte" was transferred to this newly-discovered 

 order, and has since been applied by the majority of English 

 naturalists to it alone. With Continental naturalists the 

 word has still its widest application, embracing, in their 

 nomenclature, not merely those polypiferous beings which 

 cover the bottom of the ocean with a singularly exact mi- 

 mickry of vegetation, but also the star-fishes and sea-urchins, 

 the sea-figs and sea-nettles or jelly-fish, and even the intesti- 

 nal worms ; but this extensive acceptation can scarcely be 



