176 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 



become as complete a polype as one that had never been 

 cut : they expanded, they contracted, they moved from place 

 to place. 



Still he was not satisfied, and he continued to study them, 

 in the hope that he might discover some other properties. 

 According to what he proposed, when he made the experi- 

 ment of cutting them, he should now have concluded that 

 they were plants, as the two cuttings or slips had produced 

 two perfect polypes; but from the spontaneity of their 

 movements he was rather disposed to regard them as animals. 

 As yet he did not know how they multiplied ; and having a 

 great number of them in a vase together, his attention was 

 turned to this. At last he discovered one about to produce 

 a little one. At first it was like a small green bud on the 

 body; it rapidly increased in size, sent forth arms, or tenta- 

 cula, as we shall now call them, and dropping off after some 

 days, became an independent polype. Was he now convinced 

 that the polype was an animal ? No ; this resembled the 

 increase of plants by offsets, and he thought still that the 

 polype might be a plant, or rather an animal plant, holding 

 a middle rank betwixt the two, partaking of the nature of 

 both. While he was in this state of doubt he sent some of 

 them to Paris, to the distinguished naturalist Reaumur, and 



