LIFE OF DARWIN. 23 



naturalist, but he observed biological facts of importance. 

 On the 27th of March, 1827, he made a communication 

 to the Plinian Society on the ova, or rather larvae, of the 

 Flustra or sea-mat, a member of the class Polyzoa, forming 

 a continuous mat-like colony of thousands of organisms 

 leading a joint-stock existence. He announced that he 

 had discovered in these larvae organs of locomotion, then 

 so seldom, now so frequently, known to exist on such 

 bodies. At the same time, he made known that the 

 small black body which until that time had been 

 mistaken for the young state of a species of seaweed, 

 was in reality the egg of Pontobdella muricata, a sort of 

 sea-leech. On the 3rd of April following, the discoverer 

 exhibited specimens of the latter creature with eggs and 

 young. 



In making these researches, Darwin was no doubt 

 stimulated and aided by the teaching of Dr. Grant, 

 afterwards Professor of Natural History at Univer- 

 sity College, London, who was then at Edinburgh, 

 making discoveries in the structure of sponges. Pro- 

 fessor Jameson, too, who was then forming his splendid 

 museum of natural history, cannot fail to have influenced 

 Darwin somewhat; and we find that the first lecture 

 of the concluding portion of Jameson's zoological course, 

 dealing with " The Philosophy of Zoology," had the 

 suggestive title of " The Origin of the Species of Animals." 

 Thus we must acknowledge that already at Edinburgh 

 Darwin was fairly started in the paths of zoological 

 inquiry, and the northern university must be admitted 

 to share with Cambridge, the distinction of being the 

 foster-parent of this giant- child. 



