316 
Z. ASCIDIOIDA. 
Alcyonella. 
the parent’s, and continued so. In this manner he has seen files of 
tubes and polypes formed, grafted the one on the other ; he has seen 
these unite in polypidoms which there would have been no hesitation 
in regarding as plants, if he had not followed them in the progress 
of their growth, and if he had not had the opportunity of convincing 
himself that the whole was but the assemblage of cells constructed 
and developed one after another, and inhabited by animalcules. 
Baker next described the animal in what Raspail considers its se- 
cond stage of developement ; and as his description is derived from 
native specimens, 1 insert it entire, anxious to give as much com- 
pleteness as possible to the history of a zoophyte which appears un- 
der so many phases, and regarding which there still exist considerable 
doubts. “ I was first informed,” Baker says, “ of this creature by my in- 
dustrious friend Mr William Anderson, towards the end of the year 
1743, as his letters shew : and in the year 1744, it was taken notice of 
by Mr Trembley, who gave it, in his Memoirs, the name of the Polype 
a Panache , or the Plumed Polype. My friend, who discovered it in 
his searches for the Polype, called it the Bell-Flower Animal ; and 
after favouring me with his own observations, sent me some of the 
creatures themselves, which, living with me for several months, I 
had sufficient time and opportunity to examine and consider them. 
And as there seems some little difference between those in my keep- 
ing, and what Mr Trembley describes, they may possibly be of an- 
other species, though of the same genus. 
“ This is one of the many kinds of water animals which live as it 
were in societies ; of which some sorts hang together in clusters, but 
can detach themselves at pleasure ; whilst others are so intimately join- 
ed and connected together, that no one seems capable of moving or 
changing place without affecting the quiet and situation of ail the 
rest. But this creature forms as it were an intermediate gradation 
between the other two, dwelling in the same general habitation with 
others of its own species, from whence it cannot entirely separate 
itself ; and yet therein it appears perfectly at liberty to exert its own 
voluntary motions, and can either retire into the common receptacle, 
or push itself out from thence and expand its curious members, with- 
out interfering with or disturbing its companions. 
“ They dwell together from the number of ten to fifteen, (seldom ex- 
ceedingthe latter or falling short of the former number,) in a filmy kind 
of mucilaginous or gelatinous case, which out of the water has no 
determined form, appearing like a lump of slime, but when expand- 
ed therein, resembles nearly the figure of a bell with the mouth up- 
wards ; and is usually about the length of half an inch, and one quar- 
