Alexander Henry Haliday

“ We must be able to conceive, as possible at least, if we do not actually assume as true, the original existence of several individuals and one species, to which they are subordinated not by that peculiar relation of Generation, but by other agreements, of the same sort, and only greater, in number or degree, than, those we recognize among the higher groups, and in the one case as in the other, coupled with Differences ;—whether these be Specific, Generic, or simply Individual, does not materially affect the present question. ”

“ Whatever may be thought of the freaks of fancy that some of its votaries have indulged in, however we may reprobate the perversions of truth and common sense which have been engrafted on it in certain quarters, this much is fairly to be said of the Transcendental school of Natural History, that its original principles were calculated to suggest, to a reverential spirit, some of the most striking arguments which Natural Theology has to offer for the infinite wisdom and universal agency of one God. ”

“ I think we may safely conclude, therefore, that the food of all Polyps consists chiefly of living animals of no considerable size, and that, in particular, the small and partly even microscopical Tunicata, the fry of Mollusca, the minute marine Annelids and Crustacea which illuminate the surface of the ocean by night with innumerable sparkles of phosphorescent splendour, constitute the principal substances which the Polyps assimilate for their sustenance and growth. ”

“ After he had said, a little way back, that in an army the individual soldier alone has a real existence, why not affirm that individual animals alone exist, and not species—that no one is a mere man, but also John, or James, &c that is, distinguished by some marks—be they but particular existence in a definite portion of space and time—from every other man. ”

“ It is all the more surprising to find Burmeister,who has laboured before so hard, and, as many may think, so successfully—whatever he himself may judge of it now—to establish a natural classification on philosophical grounds, in the present work almost giving up the objective truth of natural groups in zoology, while he retains them for a method of exposition. " The only real existence is the lowest and last division, called Species ”

“ In this case, whether we trace these correspondences up to Creative Design, or view them simply in reference to our own Modes of Perception, the result is equally that those Relations and Agreements,and, consequently, also the Groups connoted, or denoted, by the character,have a Real existence as truly in the Higher (genus, &c) , as in the Lower (species) —yet not Lowest group so long as some individuals of the Species present fewer differences and more points of agreement among themselves (Races, Varieties, &c) , than others. ”

“ Collateral series, may embrace more numerous marks than that of a Species not subordinate to it. Practically, too, it is the character that determines the idea of the species, which is then of the same sort as that of genus, &c, and applied in the same way, so that it is hard to tell why the one should be said to have a real existence more than the other.It is, of course, only in one point of view that Burmeister disputes the existence of Natural groups. ”

“ Not addressed directly to the professed Zoologist, these outlines of the chief types of animal structure, and of the relation that they bear to the general system of nature, are intended for a class—even now increasing in number—who, prepared already by a certain amount of education, have come to regard the observation of nature as a part of the habitual exercise which conduces to the full development of the faculties, and are willing to include the study of the laws of Life and Organization among the acknowledged instruments of intellectual training. ”

“ It shows him the wonderful activity of these minute creatures on the largest scale, while it proves the complete agreement of organization between the most ancient Polyps and those in being at the present time. In all periods, going back to the most remote antiquity of the globe, there have been Polyps in our terrestrial seas, at least as long as organic life has existed on the earth at all. It is corals that furnish the most ancient evidence that the earth was inhabited long before the beasts came into existence. ”

“ There are, indeed, plants floating freely in the sea, but this only in a few situations, and these are far too bulky to be swallowed by a Polyp, while it has no organs with which to detach from them smaller portions. A Polyp cannot gnaw, but is obliged to wait till a piece comes adapted to his swallow ”

“ In general the oldest forms of corals appear as flatter, lower, more solid stems, inhabiting the bare rocky coasts, in that period before a strand was formed, where they multiplied to a vast extent ; but in consequence of the disconnected form of the rocks to which they were affixed, they formed, as we see, no such great mural reefs as in later times, when the unbroken lines of coast descending sheer into the sea, with a rocky bottom, afforded a more suitable foundation to build up their stony walls. ”

“ Generally, the coral reefs of the Jura have more the character of Barrier reefs, and they seem to have extended parallel to the coast at a moderate distance from it, as exemplified in the coral reef of New Caledonia. ”

“ The Nummulite limestone of the Mediterranean beach, the Calcaire Grossier of the Paris basin, the Molasse of Switzerland, and the sub-Appenine limestones, are composed almost entirely of the shells of these minute, but tough creatures, whose indefatigable industry has furnished one of the best and most important of building materials for the use of man. ”

“ There can be no doubt that their chief food consists of living animals, and that the Polyps, in general, swallow these whole, having drawn them within their reach by means of the current created in the water by their cilia, or having caught and benumbed them with their stinging lines. This may be easily verified in the freshwater Hydra. The stomach, in most of the marine Polyps, is generally found empty, and seldom filled with any large bodies. They must be able to endure long abstinence, and content with small particles of food. What means, indeed, have they to master the larger animalcules ? ”

“ The current which they create, their chief means of obtaining aliment, is too feeble to overpower those of any bulk, neither are their tentacles long enough to reach and envelope such. Vegetable matter does not seem to enter into their alimentary cavity, probably because it is not fit for their sustenance. ”

“ The investigations of late years, so diligently pursued, and with such fruitful results, regarding the structure and history of the lowest classes of animals, it is true, have afforded much new materials, of which he has not been slow to avail himself here ”