IX. HYDBA. 



" Great Nature is more wise than I. 

 I will not tell you not to weep." TENNYSON. 



"Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene 

 her own laws. She keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them. 

 She arms and equips an animal to find its place and living in 

 the earth, and at the same time arms and equips another animal to 

 destroy it." EMERSON. 



OF all the minute forms of animal life, perhaps none 

 have excited more general interest and curiosity than 

 the Hydra, or fresh-water polype, and this not so 

 much from any special beauty in it, as from the truly 

 wonderful properties belonging to its extremely 

 plastic nature. To recite a few of these is enough 

 at once to arrest the attention. What will be said 

 to the following well-vouched-for facts ? You may 

 take a Hydra and cut off its head and engraft it on 

 another; or you may exchange heads one Hydra 

 with another. You may cut up one animal into 

 forty or fifty pieces, and each piece will become a 



