FOURTH GREAT DIVISION OF THE 

 ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



ANIMALIA RADIATA. 



THE RADIATED ANIMALS, ZOOPHYTA, or ZOOPHYTES*, as they 

 are termed, include a number of beings whose organisation, always 

 evidently more simple than that of the three preceding divisions, also 

 presents a greater variety of degrees than is observed in either of them, 

 and seems to agree in but one point, viz. their parts are arranged 

 round an axis and on one or several radii, or on one or several lines 

 extending from one pole to the other. Even the Entozoa or Intestinal 

 Worms have at least two tendinous lines, or two nervous threads pro- 

 ceeding from a collar round the mouth, and several of them have four 

 suckers situated round a probosciform elevation. In a word, notwith- 

 standing some irregularities, and some very few exceptions those of 

 the Planaria and most of the Infusoria traces of the radiating form 

 are always to be found, which are strongly marked in the greater num- 

 ber, and particularly in Asterias, Echinus, the Acalepha, and the 

 innumerable host of the Polypi. 



Neither of these denominations should be construed literally. There are some 

 genera in this division in which the radiation is but slightly marked or even totally 

 wanting, and it is only among the Polypi that we find that constancy and form of flowers 

 which has caused them to receive the name of Zoophytes. These appellations, however, 

 indicate our having reached the lowest part of the animal scries, and that we have arrived 

 at beings, most of which remind us more or less of the vegetable kingdom, even in their 

 external forms it is in this sense that I employ them. 



[We here return to the Huron ; the portion of the work written by M. Latreille, which 

 commenced with the Crustacea, having terminated with the Dipterous Insects. 



