94. On the Genus Amathia of Lamouroux, 



new title of the Museum of Natural History, he was 

 appointed to a professorship of zoology. He was then fifty 

 years old, being one of the few fortunate eminent men who 

 came through the French Revolution with their heads on their 

 shoulders. He devoted himself with great ardour to the study ' 

 of zoology. He gave a new classification of the Polypi in 

 his first edition of the History of Invertebrate Animals, which 

 is an analysis of his lectures at the museum. He regretted 

 the name of Zoophytes, as being unphilosophical, there 

 being no such thing in nature as animals and plants 

 combined. It may be questioned, however, whether plant 

 animals in some sense are not admitted by men of science 

 at the present day. Lamarck contributed very much to 

 the knowledge of the Polyzoa during his life, which closed 

 when he had reached the goodly term of eighty-five years. 

 For the last few years he was quite blind. In his Philosophy 

 of Zoology, published in 1809 ; in his extracts from the 

 Gours de Zoologie, published in 1812 ; in his Memoire sur 

 les Polypiers Empates (1813), and on the Polypiers Cortici- 

 feres (1815), he made several changes in the classification. I 

 shall deal with this question presently ; but I wish now to 

 mention the circumstances which brought the Australian 

 Polyzoa prominently into notice. Up to the close of the 

 last century it was the opinion of naturalists that Polyzoa 

 and small corals and corallines (algse) did not exist except in 

 the European seas. It was a natural conclusion, derived 

 from the fact that none were brought to Europe from 

 foreign shores. Collectors busied themselves with the large 

 and attractive specimens, and did not trouble about minute 

 things. It was M. Bosc, in his different works, but princi- 

 pally in his Natural History of Vermes* who combated 

 this mistake. He studied the animals of many Tubulariadse, 

 Sertularia, and Alcyons, obtained from the floating weed of 

 the Sargassum Seas of the Atlantic. On the coasts 

 of Carolina, in America, he observed the growth of 

 Gorgonia. He was the first who had the hardihood 

 to say that the East Indian oceans contained Polypi 

 similar to those of Europe, but he only advanced this 

 opinion upon analogy. It was soon confirmed by the 

 collections of Commerson and Sonnerat. But the most im- 

 portant contribution was that of Peron and Lesueur. These 



* Printed in 1802, the 18mo edition of works of Buffon, known as the 

 edition of Deterville. 



