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 Reaumur, 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, will not sink, but float. In ano- 

 ther figure we see a polype attached by its base to the side 



