A STUDY OF LOWER LIFE. 6r 



" budding" with the functions of an animal organism. Yet in 

 the hydra, in a large number of its immediate neighbours, 

 and in a few other groups of the animal world, a veritable 

 process occurs, whereby from a parent-body certain portions 

 are gradually budded out, to assume in due time the form 

 and likeness of the being which has produced them. 



Thus when the hydra is well nourished, little projections 

 may be observed to sprout from the side of the body. As 

 these projections increase in size, each is seen gradually to 

 develop a mouth and little tentacles at its free end, and in 

 due time presents us with the spectacle of a young hydra 

 which has budded from the parent (Fig. i), to which, save 

 in size, it bears a close resemblance. Sometimes, also, it 

 so happens that this young bud grows and multiplies like 

 its parent, and produces a bud in its turn. So that we meet 

 in such a case with a veritable genealogical tree, presenting 

 us with three generations of hydrae, adhering to each other 

 and connected by the closest ties of blood-relationship. 

 Not only, therefore, is our hydra coloured like a plant ; it 

 also closely imitates the plant-creation in certain aspects of 

 its life-history, and, by the process of budding, converts it- 

 self from a single into a compound animal. So long as the 

 young buds remain attached to the parent, so long does 

 communication exist between the simple body-cavities of 

 the connected individuals ; and the compound organism is 

 thus nourished by as many mouths as there are animals in 

 the colony. But this connected and compound state is not 

 permanent in the hydra, although, as seen in the zoophytes, 

 it presents us with a complicated and enduring fabric, number- 

 ing, it may be, many hundreds of included animals, which 

 have been produced by a process of budding. Sooner or 

 later the young hydra-buds will break contact with the 

 parent-body, and will float away through the surrounding 

 water on their way to root themselves to fixed objects, and 

 to begin life on their own account. 



More astonishing by far, however, is it to find that we 

 possess the means for propagating hydras at will. We may 



