AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 141 



which, deserve attention, and whose importance was 

 not appreciated till they were examined from a point 

 of view which was for a great length of time un- 

 recognized. 



As the result of the discoveries we have alluded to, 

 several organisms were ranked among the relatives of 

 the hydra, which were really in no way akin to it. 

 Such were the corallines, which are undoubted vege- 

 table structures, and the Flustrce, Eschar ce, SbndBotrylli, 

 which belong to the compound or aggregated mollusks. 

 Their true nature was demonstrated in 1816 by Sa- 

 vigny, the companion of Geoffroy and Cuvier, he who 

 suffered thirty years' martyrdom for his endeavours to 

 advance science. The multiplication of individuals 

 occurs in all these species in the same manner as in 

 the polyp with which they were confounded.* The 

 several modes of reproduction discovered by Reaumur's 

 contemporaries were thus presented by different ani- 

 mals, among some of which, the various individuals 

 were connected together organically ; thus converting 

 them into animal colonies capable of growth and of 

 extension. Reproduction by fission and gemmation 

 only explained the multiplication of the individuals 

 of the colony in one locality, but left unsolved the 

 question of the distribution of the colonies them- 

 selves. 



* " Memoires sur les Animaux sans vertebres." On Savignys 

 return from his Egyptian expedition, and whilst in the pursuit of 

 his studies, he was attacked by a very extraordinary and calamitous 

 disease of the eyes, which deprived him of his vision for thirty 

 years. Cuvier remarked, in a report to the Institute upon one of 

 the first memoirs of this naturalist, " Savigny does not merely dis- 

 cover, he reveals ;" so unexpected but withal so clearly demon- 

 strated were the results enunciated. 



