VI 



part of many living animals, united, and incapable of 

 voluntary separation from each other. These animals, 

 or polypi, have but one character in common, that 

 of being continually attached to an animated mass, 

 sharing in, and contributing to, its existence; and, not- 

 withstanding this involuntary attachment to the colony, 

 each individual possessing a life peculiar to itself, 

 and distinct from the rest of the colony, all the polypi 

 of a Polypidom participate in its existence ; and the 

 food which one of these little creatures takes in, ex- 

 tends its influence to the most distant part of the 

 colony it belongs to. 



CLASSES, ORDERS, &c. 



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The arrangement into Classes, Orders, Genera, and 

 Species, so advantageously employed in Botany, has 

 been adopted in the present work ; the Polypidom s 

 are separated into four Classes, with the first of 

 which we commence a sketch of our History. 



The first Class is that of the celluliferous Polypi- 

 doms, whose polypi are found in shelly or non-irri- 

 table cells ; it is divided into three Orders, begin- 

 ning with that whose cells are apparently isolated ; 



