136 ANTIIOZOA HYDROIDA. 



apparently cruel operations, 



" scarce seems to feel, or know 



His wound," — 



for before the lapse of many minutes, the upper half of a cross 

 section will expand its tentacula and catch prey as usual ; and the 

 two portions of a longitudinal division will, after an hour or two, 

 take food and retain it. " A polype, cut transversely in three parts, 

 requires four or five days in summer, and longer in cold weather, for 

 the middle piece to produce a head and tail, and the tail part to get 

 a body and head ; which they both do in pretty much the same time. 

 The head part always appears a perfect polype sooner than the 

 rest." — " And what is still more extraordinary, polypes produced in 

 this manner grow much larger, and are far more prolific in the way 

 of their natural increase, than those that were never cut. It is very 

 common, when a polype is divided transversely, to see a young one 

 push out from one or other of the parts, and sometimes from both of 

 them, in a very few hours after the operation has been performed : 

 and particularly from the tail part, two or three are frequently 

 protruded in different places, and at different times, long before that 

 part acquires a new head, and consequently whilst it can take in no 

 fresh nourishment to supply them with ; and yet the young ones 

 proceeding from it, under these disadvantages, thrive as fast, and 

 seem as vigorous, as those produced by perfect and uncut polypes."* 

 When such things were first announced — when to a little worm 

 the attributes of angelic beings were assigned, t and the wild fictions 

 of antiquity realized,^ — it is not wonderful that the vulgar dis- 



* Baker, lib. s, cit. 92, 93. 

 t " Vital in every part, not as frail Man 

 In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins. 

 Cannot but by annihilating die ; 

 Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound 

 Receive, no more than can the fluid air. 

 All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear, 



— — and, as they please. 



They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size 

 Assume, as likes them best." Milto?i. 



X "Art thou proportioned to the Hydra's length. 



Who by his wounds received augmented strength ? 

 He raised a hundred hissing heads in air ; 

 When one I lopp'd, up sprung a dreadful pair ; 

 By his wounds fertile, and with slaughter strong, 

 Singly I queird him, and stretch'd dead along." 



Ovkl. Melam. bk. ix. trans. 



