260 JVevo Publications. [April, 



Btituted with a greater prospect of success, than in the higher 

 forms of life. 



Another fact which creates for them a philosophical interest 

 and makes them objects worthy of special study is, the position 

 which they appear to hold as respects the vegetable and animal 

 kingdoms; and indeed so perfectly neutral is the ground %\hich 

 they occupy that their position in the organized world was not 

 clearly determined until about a century ago. 



Standing then, as philosophers admit, as links in outward form 

 at least between the vegetable on the one hand, and the animal 

 on the other, it is not at all surprising that they should be studied 

 with great assiduity at a time when such an impulse to know 

 pervades so extensively the intellectual world. 



Mr. Dana, in his brief, but appropriate introduction, holds the 

 following language in relation to this class of animals: 



The forms of life, under consideration in the following pages, 

 are appropriately styled fiower-animds. In external figure, the 

 individual animals closely resemble flowers, and no less so in 

 brilliancy and variety of coloring. Moreover, a large number of 

 zoophytes are so like trees and shrubs of land vegetation as to 

 have deceived even the philosopher till near a century since. The 

 mosses and ferns of our woods — the lichens and mushroom — the 

 clump of pinks — the twig and spreading shrub — have all their 

 counterpart among the productions of the sea. The ocean grove 

 is without verdure, yet there is full compensation in its perpetual 

 bloom; for each coral branch is everywhere covered with its star- 

 shaped animals, the " coral-blossoms." 



The similitude to plants, however, is rather external and gene- 

 ral, and not real in actual structure. The flower-animal has its 

 mouth and its stomach to receive its food, and when it is digested 

 it is ejected. Around its mouth it has petal-like organs arranged 

 in the form of a star; these are called tentacles, and resemble 

 fingers by which its prey is seized and conveyed to its stomach. 



A Zoophyte is an inarticulate animal, with a fleshy body, near- 

 ly cylindrical in form, having a circular disk, bordered with tenta- 

 cles, in the centre of which is the mouth; its body is a visceral 



