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 which 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 
