During our studies on bryozoan autozooidal behaviour, we, following Winston, realized that ‘the 19th [as well as 18th] century knowledge of individual (polypide) behaviour was never codified’. This negligence in respect to the work of the old authors led to two main consequences. Firstly, the names of many brilliant naturalists, whose observations and detailed descriptions were, as a rule, perfect and whose results are the basement of modern knowledge, were either undeservedly forgotten or mentioned only in passing. Secondly, ‘double work’ was carried out since many of previously recorded phenomena and structures were newly redescribed, which is intimately connected with the problem of scientific priority. So, this paper was written with the aim to correct the situation in question at least partially. We present a historical survey on the development of views on individual autozooidal behaviour and feeding mechanisms in Bryozoa, with the emphasis on the priority in the recording of one or other type of activities and feeding/sensory structures.