182 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
our received opinions of animal life, that many people have 
looked upon them as ridiculous whims and absurd impossi- 
bilities. In order, therefore, to set this matter right, I beg 
you will give me leave to lay before the public some obser- 
vations and experiments on this creature, made with the 
utmost care and attention, before several persons of un- 
questionable credit and discernment, and written down from 
time to time with the strictest regard to truth.” 
He confirms all that had been recorded respecting them 
by Trembley and Réaumur, illustrating his statements with. 
numerous woodcuts, which, though coarse when compared 
with the exquisite engravings of Lyonet, answer, neverthe- 
less, the purposes for which they were intended. He gives 
one figure of the little creature suspended from the surface 
of the water by its expanded tentacula, and another figure 
of it suspended from the surface by its tail, both very com- 
mon positions, which He who made it taught it how to as- 
sume by allowing either the tentacula or the tip of the tail 
to get dry in the air, and then these dry parts keep above 
the surface of the water, on the same principle as a dry 
needle, though of greater specific gravity, if laid cautiously 
on the surface of the water, wiil not sink, but float. In ano- 
ther figure we see a polype attached by its base to the side 
