108 Z. HYDROIDA. Hydra. 



the vulg-ar disbelieved, albeit credulity may be their besetting sin, 

 when even naturalists, familiar with all the miracles of the insect 

 world, were amazed and wist not what to do. " II faut" — exclaimed 

 Reaumur — " il faut porter la foi humaine plus loin qu'il n'est permis 

 a des hommes eclaires, pour le croire sur le premier temoignage de 

 celui qui le raconte, et assure I'avoir vu. Peut-on se resoudre a 

 croire qu'il y ait dans la nature des aniraaux qu'on multiplie en les 

 hachant, pour ainsi dire, par raorceaux ?" * But this illustrious na- 

 turalist was himself the first to promulgate, and experimentally to 

 verify, the discoveries of Abraham Trembley, which have been fully 

 confirmed by many subsequent inquirers, and are now made so familiar 

 to us by their admission into elementary works and treatises on na- 

 tural theology, that we read of them with little surprise and without 

 incredulousness. 



* Hist, des Insectes, vi. pref. 49. 



