ZOOPHYTES, 



WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE BUCHAN 



COAST. 



The natural productions to which our attention is to be directed 

 to-night were called zoophytes, it is probable at a time when it was 

 thought by many that they were a connecting link betwixt the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms ; that though it could no longer be denied that 

 they contained animals, yet they were indebted for their growth to an 

 inherent principle of vegetation. The name (animal-plant), though no 

 longer appropriate in this sense, may still be retained as suitable for 

 some of them at least, as having the outward appearance of sea plants, 

 but being in reality formed by the little polypes inhabiting their numer- 

 ous tubes or cells. 



Long had they been regarded as within the domain of the botanist. 

 He laid claim to them on various grounds : they often had the external 

 appearance of little shrubs ; they did not, like animals, move from place 

 to place, but remained permanently in the same situation, attached to 

 other objects by fibres much resembling roots of sea plants. Some, from 

 their hard and stony nature, were disposed to place them in the mineral 

 kingdom, alleging that they either were crystallizations formed from 

 calcareous sediment or by some natural incrustations of seaweeds. 



Imperato, a Neapolitan, seems to have been the first to state, as the 

 result of his own observations, that corals and madrepores were the work 

 of the living animals who dwelt in them. What reception his publication 

 met with from the naturalists of that day (1601) I have not been able to 

 learn. Though this work was illustrated by figures, a second edition 

 did not appear till 1672, when the author, I doubt not, had passed away 

 from the land of the living. Even then it seems to have been little read, 

 for when Peysonnel, more than half a century afterwards, communicated 

 the same discoveries to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, they deemed 



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