CLASSIFICATIONS OF ZOOPHYTES. 445 



Tribe 2. Les Lithophytes. 



Isis. 



Madrepora. 



Millepora. 

 Tribe 3. Polypes Nageurs. 



Pennatula. Subgenera Pennatula, Cuv. Virgularia, 

 Lam. Scirpearia, Cuv. Pavonaria, Cuv. Renilla, 

 Lam. Veretillum, Cuv. Ombellularia, Cuv. 

 Tribe 4. Alcyons. 



Alcyonium. 



Spongia. 



In the definitions there is throughout a certain degree of 

 vagueness, or at least the absence of that finicalness, which is 

 so pleasing to the practical systematist ; and in the value of 

 the characters chosen to separate the orders and families there 

 is great inequality. Hydra and Corine, for example, are more 

 nearly allied to Tubularia and Sertularia, than the latter are 

 to the Ceratophytes, yet these are placed in one and the same, 

 and the Hydra in a separate order. Had the Ceratophytes 

 been elevated to the rank of an order, and the Madrepora 

 been removed to the Polypes charnus, the system would have 

 been improved, and no very obvious alliances broken. In the 

 subordinate parts of the system there are many misplacements 

 of the subgenera, as the genera of his contemporaries were 

 named, of which we may instance the Campanularia which is 

 placed under Tubularia of Linnaeus, to which, however, it has 

 certainly much less affinity than to the Sertularia, where it 

 had always hitherto been assigned. 



In 1810, Lamouroux of Caen presented to the Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris a new classification of the flexible polypi- 

 doms ; and it would appear that Lamarck was engaged at the 

 same time in similar labours; but, proceeding on different 

 principles, they arrived at very different results. The ana- 

 tomy of the workers or polypes was, according to Lamou- 

 roux, so imperfectly ascertained, and from their situation as 

 well as from their minuteness, so little within attainment, 

 that it seemed hopeless to procure materials for a classification 

 from that source, and he confined his attention solely to the 

 polypidoms, on whose composition he founded his primary 



