HISTOIIY OF THE ZOOPHYTES. 403 



rifle it of its honey. Tiie animal in this instance seems to have 

 scarce a power of self-defence ; the vegetable not only guards 

 its possessions, but seizes upon the robber tnat would venture 

 to invade them. In like manner, the methods of propagation 

 give no superiority to the lower rank of animals. On the con- 

 trary, vegetables are frequently produced more conformably to 

 the higher ranks of the creation, and though some plants are 

 produced by cuttings from others, yet the general manner of 

 propagation is from seeds, laid in the womb of the earth, where 

 they are hatched into the similitude of the parent plant or flower. 

 But a most numerous tribe of animals have lately been dis- 

 covered, which are propagated by cuttings, and this in so ex- 

 traordinary a manner, that, though the original insect be divided 

 into a thousand parts, each, however small, shall be formed 

 into an animal, entirely resembling that which was at first di- 

 vided ; in this respect, therefore, certain races of animals seem 

 to fall beneath vegetables, by their more imperfect propagation.* 



* The reasouing held forth by our author is more chimerical than just. 

 Altliough naturalists have found some difficulty in arranging, in their proper 

 place in the system of nature, various species of zoophytes, yet there could 

 be but few doubts as to where the ditferent species of testaceous shells 

 should be placed. Although all the species of lepas, or acorn-shells, are in- 

 capable of roaming about in search of food, being always parasitical, and 

 iramoveably fixed to some other substance ; yet they are possessed of 

 powers of voluntary motion, which must at once distinguish them from 

 vegetables. They have feelers which they can protrude in search of food, 

 and which they can extend or withdraw at pleasure. The oyster and pholas 

 liold still a higher rank in the scale of beings : the former of which is inde. 

 pendent, and can move about at pleasure ; while the pholas, although gene- 

 rally confined within a small cavity, which it makes for itself in stone or 

 hard clay, and which It can enlarge at pleasure, has also the power of mo%'. 

 ing its whole shell, and of protruding a long prehensile tube in search of food. 



The creatures that are ranked under the Linnean order zoopliyta seem to 

 hold a middle station between animals and vegetables. Most of them, de- 

 prived of the powers of locomotion, are fixed by stems that take root in 

 crevices of rocks, and among sand ; these by degrees send ofl' branches, til! 

 at length some of them attain the size and extent of large shrubs. The 

 zoophytes are usually considered under two divisions. The stony branches 

 of the first division, which has the general appellation of coral, are hollow, 

 and full of cells, which are the habitations of animals resembling polypes, 

 medusa;, &c. according to their respective genera. The next division con- 

 sists of such animals as have softer stems, and are in general not merely in- 

 habitants of a stem or branches, but are themselves in the form of a plant. 

 Those of this division, which are best known, are the corallines, the sponge% 

 and the polypes. 



