HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 423 



the zenith of his reputation, the " prince of naturalists," as 

 his followers loved to style him, from whose decision on all 

 disputed points in natural history there was scarcely an ad- 

 missible appeal. And Linnaeus almost merited this distinc- 

 tion, for he was a man not only of superior capacity and 

 acquirements, of great sagacity, ready apprehension, and 

 fruitful fancy, but he was also of a candid and liberal disposi- 

 tion ; and the ingenious labours of Ellis received from him 

 great and merited commendation. He had previously, in the 

 belief that lime was never formed but by animals, placed the 

 Lithophyta in the animal kingdom ; and he now adopted the 

 opinions of Ellis so far as to include in it the horny and 

 flexible polypidoms also, but at the same time he broached the 

 conjecture, for it deserves no higher praise, that these were 

 really intermediate between the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms, so that it could not be said they properly belong to 

 either. The animalcules of the Lithophyta, like the testace- 

 ous tribes, he said, fabricated their own calcareous polypidom, 

 forming the whole mass into tubes, each ending on the surface 

 in pores or cells, where alone the animal seems to dwell;* 

 but the polypes of the proper Zoophyta, so far from construct- 

 ing their plant-like polypidoms, were, on the contrary, the 

 productions or efflorescences of it,-f just as the flowers do not 

 make the herb or tree, but are the results of the vegetative 

 life proceeding to perfection. Polypes, according to this 

 fancy, bore the same relation to their polypidom that flowers 

 do to the trunk and branches of the tree ; both grew by vege- 

 tation, but, while the one evolved from the extremities blos- 

 soms which shrunk not under external irritations, and were 

 therefore properly flowers, the other put forth flowers which, 

 because they exhibited every sign of animality, were therefore 



Lithophyta" animalia mollusca, composite Corallium calcareum, firnm, quod 

 inaedificarunt animalia affixa." Syst. 1270. 



t Zoophyta "animalia composite, efflorescentia. Stirps vegetans, metamorphosi 

 transiens in florens animal." Syst. 1287. "Zoophyta non rant, uti Lithophyta, 

 auctores suse testae ; sed testa ipsorum ; sunt enim corpora (uti flores) imprimis gene- 

 rationis organa, adjectis nonnullis oris motusque instrumentis, ut motum, quern ex- 

 trinsecus non habent, a se ipsis obtineant." Syst. Nat. edit. 10. 799. When Berken- 

 hout translates the first of these definitions stems vegetating and changing 

 animals," (Synop. i. 15,) he certainly departs, if not from the letter, yet fro 

 meaning of Linnaeus. 



