180 H1STOEY OP BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 



crisis, and the larger, making a wide mouth, swallows the 

 smaller one, worm and all. You would imagine that he 

 who has been swallowed by an enemy whose very touch has 

 so often proved deadly, might be numbered with the dead, 

 and would never appear on the field again. Point du tout. 

 Watch the victor for a little, and you will find that ere an 

 hour elapses he again opens his wide mouth, and disgorges 

 from his greedy maw his imprisoned victim, minus the worm, 

 which the conqueror has by this time digested, but other- 

 wise unscathed, and as ready as ever to pursue his prey, and 

 to assert his right to it when it is captured ! 



M. Trembley learned, in the course of his observations, 

 that these little Hydra are very prolific. When the tempe- 

 rature was mild and nourishment abounded, a single polype 

 produced about twenty offsets or young ones in a month. 

 But then these twenty form not the whole product, for every 

 one of the young ones, when disjoined, becomes as fertile as 

 the mother. Nay, it very often happens that they begin to 

 be prolific before they are separated from the mother ; and as 

 the mother polype has several offshoots appended to her at 

 the same time, and they also may be each yielding offspring, 

 she is thus laden at once with two generations, mother and 

 children and grandchildren fastened together and appearing 

 like a little branching shrub. 



