vi.J ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 113 



The comparison of the flowers of the coral to a "petite 

 ortie " or " little nettle " is perfectly just, but needs ex- 

 planation. " Ortie de mer," or " sea-nettle," is, in fact, 

 the French appellation for our " sea-anemone," a creature 

 with which everybody, since the great aquarium mania, 

 must have become familiar, even to the limits of bore- 

 dom. In 1710, the great naturalist, Reaumur, had 

 written a memoir for the express purpose of demon- 

 strating that these " orties " are animals ; and with this 

 important paper Peyssonel must necessarily have been 

 familiar. Therefore, when he declared the " flowers " of 

 the red coral to be little " orties," it was the same thing 

 as saying that they were animals of the same general 

 nature as sea-anemones. But to Peyssonel's contempo- 

 raries this was an extremely startling announcement. 

 It was hard to imagine the existence of such a thing as 

 an association of animals into a structure with stem and 

 branches altogether like a plant, and fixed to the soil as 

 a plant is fixed ; and the naturalists of that day preferred 

 not to imagine it. Even Reaumur could not bring him- 

 self to accept the notion, and France being blessed with 

 Academicians, whose great function (as the late Bishop 

 Wilson and an eminent modern writer have so well 

 shown) is to cause sweetness and light to prevail, and to 

 prevent such unmannerly fellows as Peyssonel from blurt- 

 ing out unedifying truths, they suppressed him ; and, as 

 aforesaid, his great work remained in manuscript, and 

 may at this day be consulted by the curious in that state, 

 in the " Bibliotheque du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle." 

 Peyssonel, who evidently was a person of savage and un- 

 tameable disposition, so far from appreciating the kind- 

 ness of the Academicians in giving him time to reflect 

 upon the unreasonableness, not to say rudeness, of making 

 public statements in opposition to the views of some of 

 the most distinguished of their body, seems bitterly to 



H I 



