Natural History of British Zoophytes. 69 



the new doctrine was in a more popular style, but not the less 

 excellent: he gave a short exposition of the ascertained facts, — 

 reviewed with the clearness of an eye-witness the discoveries of 

 Trembley, — pointed out their relations to the experiments of Jus- 

 sieu and Guettard, and how they mutually lent andborrowed strength^ 

 — palliated and explained away his former opposition to Peyssonnel, 

 — and declared his complete faith in the animality of Zoophytes, 

 and his conviction that a numerous list of productions hitherto un- 

 examined would be found to be of the same nature. " All that we 

 have said," he thus concludes, " of the polypes of the sea, is merely 

 a sort of advertisement which, however, cannot fail to produce the 

 effect which we promise ourselves from it : it will direct undoubted- 

 ly the curiosity of naturalists who reside by the sea to insects 

 so worthy of being better known. They will seek out the different 

 species ; they will delight to describe to us the varieties presented 

 in their forms never but remarkable ; they will study the figure 

 and disposition of the cells of the various species, their manner of 

 growth and reproduction and wherewithal they are nourished ; 

 they will in short place in a clear light every thing that has refe- 

 rence to the different polypidoms and their formation, so that a de- 

 partment of natural history, so interesting, so new, and as yet only 

 sketched in outline, may be rendered as perfect as it merits to be."* 

 The appeal, eloquent as it was and from one having great influ- 

 ence, was however made in vain ; for whether from the inveteracy 



oppose, n'etoit autre chose que de petits tuyaux contenant chacun un petit 



insecte." — Mem. de l'Acad. Roy. des Sc. an. 1742, p. 292 Reaumur is still 



more explicit. : " Apres avoir observe dans l'eau meme de la mer plusieurs es- 

 peces de ces productions si bien conformees a la maniere des plantes, il vit sortir 

 des bouts de toutes leurs branches et de tous leurs noeuds, ou de toutes leurs 

 articulations, de petits animaux qui, comme les polypes a paneche d'eau douce, 

 se donnoient tantot plus, tantot moins de mouvement, qui comme ceux-ci s'e- 

 panouissoient en certains temps, et qui dans d'autres rentroient en entier dans 

 leur petite cellule, hors de laquelle leur partie posterieure ne se trouvoit jamais. 

 Enfin, il (B. de Jussieu) reconnut que plusieurs especes de ces corps, dont 

 chacun avoit l'exterieur d'une tres-belle plante, n'etoient que des assemblages 

 d'un nombre prodigieux de cellules de polypes ; en un mot, que plusieurs de ces 

 productions de la mer, que tous les botanistes que les ont decrites ont prises 

 pour des plantes, et ont fait representer comme telles avec complaisance, n'eto- 

 ient que des polypiers." — Preface, vol. vi. p. 71, 72. See also Amoenitates Aca- 

 demicae, Vol. i. p. 185, for an enumeration of the species of Sertularia, &c, 

 which Jussieu had examined, and considered to be animal productions. His ac- 

 count, however, of the animal of the Sertulariae is altogether erroneous. 



* Memoires pour servir a 1' histoire des Insectes, Tome sixieme, Paris, 1742, 

 Quarto. Preface from p. 68 to p. 80. 



