J. D. Dana on Zoophytes. 65 
among the coral branches. The coral tree is without aie, 
but there is full compensation. in its perpetual bloom. 
It is not surprising that,these resemblances should have misled 
early investigators. For a long period only the external forms of 
zoophytes were known, and every analogy observed authorized 
their arrangement with plants.* The discovery of the flowers 
or seed of corals was yet to be made to prove the identity; and 
at last, Marsigli, an active explorer of the Mediterranean, came 
forward with this veritable discovery itself, and published figures 
of “les fleurs du corail’>—the coral blossoms.+ Other discoveries 
followed: but it was soon shown, that these flowers, were gifted 
with the attributes of animal life. This observation is said to 
have been first made by Ferrante Imperato, a naturalist of Naples, 
who published his Historia Naturale in 1599.{ It was however 
demonstrated independently, as is believed, and more thoroughly, 
by Peyssonel, who wrote an elaborate memoir on certain species 
examined by him in the West Indies.¢ But before a transfer of 
zoophytes from the vegetable to the animal kingdom was gen- 
erally allowed, the subject was one of warm debate among the 
philosophers of the day. The animals detected were suspected 
of being parasites, and pronounced as too inefficient for the pro- 
duction of trees of stone with their spreading branches; while 
the formation of coral was attributed to a kind of inaguilie 
growth by some, and to mineral aggregation or lapltlinptiens by 
bid oe ee authors who arranged corals with the vegetable —_— are Dios- 
corides, pin, Bauhin, Ray, Geoffroy, Tournefort, and Mars 
sah Mari, ees de la Mer, Amsterdam, 1725. His first observations were 
made i 
oT See hana s Manuel d’Actinologie, p. 1 
§ Peyssonel’s Memoir covers 400 pages of sailed: It was sent to the Royal 
pages in 1751, and an abstract of it was read, which appeared in the Transactions 
for 1753, (vol. x, of the Abridgment.) The Memoir, though for many years sup- 
posed to be lost, is still extant in the library of the museum at Paris; and a late 
Notice of it by M. Flourens may be found in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 
ers, » iy 334, 1838. 
n others, should be the operations of 
ther iad the work of more sure vegetation, 
allest and largest trees with the same natural 
fase and influence as the minutest pla r. 
/Szconp Szrizs, Vol. II, No. 4.—July, 1846. 9 
