ANTHOZOA HYDROIDA. 89 



provisions for warding off a mortal blow from the strongest- 

 or the weakest of animated beings ! How numerous the 

 cares and precautions that others shall exist ! How infi- 

 nite are the means of destroying life ! The elements them- 

 selves seem to conspire against it. Myriads which have 

 lived perish in a moment; while this lapse of time is de- 

 manded for their evolution and maturity ; — yet Nature for- 

 bids extirpation of their race. Whence utter destruction 

 is counteracted, and inevitable fate compensated by mul- 

 tiplication.^^ Still further, the veteran naturalist sub- 

 joins — "Throughout animal nature there is not a subject 

 better adapted for profound contemplation, or which can 

 excite greater admiration, than the enclosure of a germ, 

 susceptible of life and evolution as a perfect being, in an 

 egg. What device alike suitable could have been con- 

 trived as adapting a point, — that wJiich has no parts and no 

 magnitude^ — to carry on successive generations, accompany- 

 ing the infinite course of time ! Let the mind wander over 

 the boundless extent of the animal kingdom ; — let our sight 

 behold the varied, the endless, the indescribable forms com- 

 prising life — as if exhausting every combination of matter ; 

 astonishment bewilders our conceptions of the transcendent 

 Power which could fashion them into definite shapes. It 



