THE ANTHOZOA 



multitudes of little polyps like those which Trembley had 

 described. After this there was no resisting Peyssonel's opinion, 

 and the name of polyps was given by Reaumur to the Hydra, to 

 Corals, and Actinians alike, because of their fancied resemblance to 

 the " Poulpe " or Octopus ; because, as he said, " leurs comes sont 

 analogues aux bras de 1'animal de mer qui est en possession de ce 

 nom." 



The discovery of the animal nature of corals attracted many 

 naturalists to the study of the Anthozoa, and considerable 

 works on the group were published by Ellis (21), Cavolini, and 

 Esper (Die Pflanzerihiere, Nuremberg, 1791). The works of these 

 authors contained many errors. No distinction was made between 

 Hydroid polyps, Polyzoa, Corals, Sponges, and even Ascidians. 

 The separation of the last named was due to Savigny. Neither 

 Cuvier, Lamarck, or Lamouroux dealt with the anatomy of "polyps," 

 but founded their systems on the characters of the skeletons or 

 polyparies. It was Milne-Edwards who, in conjunction with 

 Audouin, first demonstrated in 1828 that Flustra and its allies are 

 distinguished from the Actinians and Coral polyps by the possession 

 of a separate mouth and anus, and that the sponges form a separate 

 group characterised by the absence of polyps. In 1830 Vaughan, 

 Thompson, and in 1834 Ehrenberg, finally separated Flustra 

 and its allies under the names Polyzoa and Bryozoa, but the 

 Hydrozoa were still confounded with the Anthozoa, and it 

 required some years of labour on the part of Sars, Dujardin, von 

 Siebold, P. van Beneden, and Desor in order to effectually separate 

 the two groups. The anatomy and classification of the group 

 thus purged of intruders were placed on a firm basis by the 

 classical works of Dana, and of Milne-Edwards and Haime (1857), 

 and in more recent years the studies of de Lacaze-Duthiers, 

 Kowalevsky, G. von Koch, and E. B. Wilson on development, of 

 A. Agassiz, Moseley, G. von Koch, and others on the comparative 

 anatomy, and 0. and R. Hertwig on the histology of many forms 

 of Anthozoa have gone far to render our knowledge of the group 

 more exact, though, as yet, far from complete. 



The Anthozoa, whose history has been shortly considered, form 

 a class of the phylum Coelentera. Leaving the Porifera and 

 Ctenophora out of consideration, as possessing structural and 

 embryonic features which separate them somewhat sharply from 

 the remainder of the Coelentera, the fundamental morphological 

 concept of a Coelenterate animal is a polyp or zooid. 



The term polyp, as has been shown above, is due to a fancied 

 resemblance between the coelenterate individual and the Poulpe or 

 Polypus, as the common Octopus was popularly named in France. 

 In spite of its fanciful origin, the term has come into general use, 



