471 



ture, a type which was afterwards destined to mark out a dis- 

 tinct and extensive order in the animal kingdom, rendered the 

 discovery of the Polype a panache one of the most important 

 epochs in the progress of zoological research. 



The Polype a panache is closely allied to the subject of 

 the present paper, and indeed has been frequently confounded 

 with it; it is, however, really distinct; and the first record we 

 have of the discovery of a true Alcyonella is to be found in a 

 memoir presented by the celebrated Pallas to the Royal Aca- 

 demy of Sciences of St. Petersburgh, in the year 1768. In 

 this memoir the author described a peculiar production which 

 he had found in the river Kliasma, in the centre of Russia, 

 and which he named Tubularia fungosa. There can be no 

 doubt of the Tubularia fungosa of Pallas being identical with 

 the animal afterwards called Alcyonella stagnorum by Lamarck, 

 the best known species of the genus to whose history the 

 present paper is devoted. 



We next find Schmiedel, in his Icones Plantarum, mistak- 

 ing the Alcyonella for a fresh-water sponge, and describing it 

 under the name of Spongia lacustris. In 1789, Bruguiere 

 obtained specimens from the fountain of Bagnolet, near Paris, 

 and, evidently unacquainted with the previous labours of Pal- 

 las, described and figured them under the name of Alcyonium 

 fiuviatile in the Encyclopedic Methodique. His figure, how- 

 ever, is singularly incorrect, and in preferring the animal to 

 the genus Alcyonium he errs nearly as much as Pallas did 

 when he described it as a Tubularia. 



It is in the Histoire des Animaux sans Vertebres of 

 Lamarck, published in 1816, that we find for the first time a 

 distinct genus, established under the name of Alcyonella for 

 the animal described by Pallas and Bruguiere. 



In a singular and in many respects valuable memoir, pub- 

 lished by Raspail, in the year 1828, under the title of" His- 

 toire naturelle de I'Alcyonelle fiuviatile," and accompanied 

 by good figures, we find the strange doctrine that all the forms 



VOL. IV. 2 N 



