414 HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 



that we have said," he thus concludes, " of the polypes of the 

 sea, is merely a sort of advertisement, which however cannot 

 fail to produce the effect which we promise ourselves from it ; 

 it will direct undoubtedly the curiosity of naturalists who 

 reside by the sea to insects so worthy of being better known. 

 They will seek out the different species ; they will delight to 

 describe to us the varieties, presented in their forms never but 

 remarkable ; they will study the figure and disposition of the 

 cells of the various species, their manner of growth and repro- 

 duction, and wherewithal they are nourished; they will, in 

 short, place in a clear light every thing that has reference to 

 the different polypidoms and their formation, so that a depart- 

 ment of natural history, so interesting, so new, and as yet 

 only sketched in outline, may be rendered as perfect as it 

 merits to be."* 



The appeal, eloquent as it was, and from one having great 

 influence, was however made in vain ; for whether from the 

 inveteracy of habit and our fondness of opinions long cherish- 

 ed, or from the fewness of the published observations whence 

 the general conclusion was drawn, it seems certain that the 

 new doctrines were everywhere received with doubts and 

 suspicion, and, beyond the immediate sphere of the Parisian 

 academy, excited apparently so little interest, that no one 

 was induced to enter into a practical examination of them. 

 Donati, indeed, shortly after gave a minute and accurate de- 

 scription of the coral and its polypes, and a somewhat less 

 detailed one of the madrepores, but his phraseology being 

 botanical and his opinions unformed,-f- his researches were of 

 little immediate service to the cause of the zoologists, and 



* Memoires pour servir a 1'histoire des Insectes, Tome sixieme, Paris, 1742. 

 Quarto. Preface, from p. 68 to p. 80. 



t Shortly after this, however, he made other observations which convinced him of 

 the animality of coral. He says " I am now of opinion, that coral is nothing else 

 than a real animal, which has a very great number of heads. I consider the polypes 

 of coral as the heads of the animal. This animal has a bone ramified in the shape of 

 a shrub. This bone is covered with a kind of flesh, which is the flesh of the animal- 

 My observations have discovered to me several analogies between the animals of kinds 

 approaching to this. There are, for instance, Keratophyta, which do not differ from 

 coral, except in the bone, or part that forms the prop of the animal. In the coral it is 

 testaceous, and in the Keratophyta it is horny." Phil. Trans. (1757) abridg. xi. 

 p. 83. 



