Natural History of British Zoophytes. 67 



the work of different insects, particular to each species of these ma- 

 rine bodies, which labour uniformly according to their nature, and 

 as the Supreme Being has ordered and determined. Reaumur re- 

 marks, that these opinions were not entirely the offspring of fancy : 

 it would have been more candid and just had he said they were 

 simply the convictions of a practical naturalist, who had long and 

 patiently studied the productions in question, in their native sites 

 on the coasts of France and of Barbary. Peyssonnel had seen the 

 polypes of coral and of the madrepores ; he recognized their re- 

 semblance to the naked animal flowers ; he had witnessed their mo- 

 tions, — the extension of their tentacula, and the contraction and 

 opening of the oral aperture ; he ascertained that, unlike flowers, 

 they were to be found the same at all seasons ; that their corruption 

 exhaled the odour ; their chemical analysis discovered the consti- 

 tuent principles of animal matters ; and that the stony part of them 

 exhibited no trace of vegetable organization : and opinions deduced 

 from such data, abstracting his analogical reasoning of no value and 

 little applicability, might have been sufficient to have attracted at 

 least some attention had his opponent been less influential, or his 

 own reputation and rank somewhat greater. * 



The name and doctrine of Peyssonnel lay in this manner unknown 

 and neglected, until the remarkable experiments of Ab. Trembley, 

 in 1741, on the reproductive powers of the fresh-water polypes, t 

 and more especially his discovery of the Plumatella, itself a plant- 

 like animal production, while they extorted the wonder and admi- 

 ration of every one engaged in the study of natural science, were 

 the means of recalling to the recollection of Reaumur the views of 

 Peyssonnel ; and he now became forward in promoting such inqui- 

 ries as seemed likely to confirm and extend them. He himself ap- 



* Peyssonnel is known solely by this discovery. " M. Peyssonnel, disposed 

 from his youth to the study of natural history, after having qualified himself for 

 the practice of medicine, applied himself with great diligence to that science, 

 to which his inclinations so strongly prompted him, and being a native of, and 

 residing at Marseilles, he had the opportunity of examining the curiosities of the 

 sea, which the fishermen, more especially those who search for coral, furnished 

 him with." — Phil. Trans. He was subsequently appointed Physician-Botanist 

 to " His Most Christian Majesty" in the island of Guadalupe, and had an op- 

 portunity of prosecuting his researches on the coasts of Barbary. He is the 

 author of two or three communications in the Phil. Trans., of which the most 

 interesting is " An account of a visitation of the Leprous persons in the isle of 

 Guadalupe" in the volume for the year 1757. 



f In the Phil. Trans, for 1742, the reader will find a full account of this dis- 

 covery. 



