98 A N T I P A T H E S. 



feveral Indian nations. See Rumph. Herb, Amboin. 

 Book xii. ch. 2. 



There is certainly a great affinity between the Anti- 

 pathes and the Gorgonia ; but yet there is fo much dif- 

 ference, as with great propriety to conftitute a new genus, 

 and though the name is not new, yet it is well adapted, 

 'J he fpines in the bony part, and the gelatinous flefhy co- 

 vering, diftinguifh this genus remarkably. 



That they are covered with polype heads, or fo me thing 

 very like them, appears from examining in the microfcope 

 fome of the warts that covered a fpecimen of the Anti- 

 pathes fpiralis, lately brought from the Eaft Indies, and 

 foaked for fome time in warm water, from, which in tab. 19. 

 fig. 4. 5. the mouths and claws are exactly reprefented 

 highly magnified. And it is much more probable, that 

 they produce their eggs through thofe mouths, as the 

 Gorgonia, Ills and Alcyonium do, than from thofe imagi- 

 nary ovaries that are fecn fcattered here and there on fome 

 fpecies, both on account of the irregularity of their 

 Chapes, as well as their different fituations on the fame 

 animal. Thofe figures being no more than the remains 

 of the cover of fome extraneous bodies that have adhered 

 to them, . having myfelf feen and examined many of 

 them. One of the arguments ufed, that thefe are ova- 

 ries, is, that the fubftance of the bony part of the 

 item forms part of them ; but the very fame fub- 

 ftance, with all its fpines, likewife covers ail the fmall 

 kinds of Barnacles, and other foreign fubftances that 

 adhere to them. If we examine the ovaries of the 

 Sertularias, to which they are compared by fome, we 

 fhall foon be convinced that there is no fimilarity between 

 them ; in one, there is form and order ; in the other, 

 irregularity of fituation, and no certainty of ihape. 



Count Marfigli, in his Hiftoire Phyfique de la Mer 5 



has 



