J'avais le plaisir de voir remuer les pattes, ou pieds, de cette
Ortie, et ayant mis le vase plein d'eau ou le corail etait a une douce
chaleur aupres du feu, tous les petits insectes s'epanouirent.--L'Ortie
sortie etend les pieds, et forme ce que M. de Marsigli et moi avions
pris pour les petales de la fleur. Le calice de cette pretendue fleur
est le corps meme de l'animal avance et sorti hors de la cellule."*[114]
* This extract from Peyssonel's manuscript is given by M.
Lacaze Duthiers in his valuable Histoire Naturelle du Corail
(1866).
The comparison of the flowers of the coral to a "petite ortie," or
"little nettle," is perfectly just, but needs explanation. "Ortie de
mer," or "sea-nettle," is, in fact, the French appellation for our
"sea-anemone," a creature with which everybody, since the great aquarium
mania, must have become familiar, even to the limits of boredom. In
1710, the great naturalist, Reaumur,[115] had written a memoir for the
express purpose of demonstrating that these "orties" are animals; and
with this important paper Peyssonel must necessarily have been familiar.
Therefore, when he declared the "flowers" of the red coral to be little
"orties," it was the same thing as saying that they were animals of the
same general nature as sea-anemones. But to Peyssonel's contemporaries
this was an extremely startling announcement.
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