396 POLYZOA HYPPOCREPIA. 



tube was in connection with the parent's, and continued so. In this 

 manner he has seen files of tubes and polypes formed, grafted the 

 one on the other; he has seen these unite in polypidoms which 

 there would have been no hesitation in regarding as plants, if he 

 had not followed them in the progress of their growth, and if he had 

 not had the opportunity of convincing himself that the whole was 

 but the assemblage of cells constructed and developed one after 

 another, and inhabited by animalcules. 



Baker next described the animal in what Raspail considers its 

 second stage of development ; and as his description is derived from 

 native specimens, I insert it entire, anxious to give as much com- 

 pleteness as possible to the history of a zoophyte which appears 

 under so many phases, and regarding which there still exist con- 

 siderable doubts. " I was first informed," Baker says, " of this 

 creature by my industrious friend, Mr. William Anderson, towards 

 the end of the year 1743, as his letters shew : and in the year 1744, 

 it was taken notice of by Mr. Trembley, who gave it, in his Me- 

 moirs, the name of the Polype d Panache, or the Plumed Polype. 

 My friend, who discovered it in his searches for the polype, called it 

 the Bell-Flower Animal ; and after favouring me with his own ob- 

 servations, sent me some of the creatures themselves, which living 

 with me for several months, I had sufficient time and opportunity to 

 examine and consider them. And as there seems some little differ- 

 ence between those in my keeping, and what Mr. Trembley describes, 

 they may possibly be of another species, though of the same genus. 



" This is one of the many kinds of water animals which live as it 

 were in societies; of which some sorts hang together in clusters, but 

 can detach themselves at pleasure; whilst others are so intimately 

 joined and connected together, that no one seems capable of moving 

 or changing place without affecting the quiet and situation of all 

 the rest. But this creature forms as it were an intermediate grada- 

 tion between the other two, dwelling in the same general habitation 

 with others of its own species, from whence it cannot entirely sepa- 

 rate itself ; and yet therein it appears perfectly at liberty to exert 

 its own voluntary motions, and can either retire into the common 

 receptacle, or push itself out from thence and expand its curious 

 members, without interfering with or disturbing its companions. 



" They dwell together from the number of ten to fifteen, (seldom 

 exceeding the latter or falling short of the former number), in a 

 filmy kind of mucilaginous or gelatinous case, which out of the 

 water has no determined form, appearing like a lump of slime, but 



