184 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 



shows when he perceives a heavy fish at the end of a single 

 hair-line, and fears it should break away. Contracting the 

 arm that holds it by very slow degrees, he brings it within 

 the reach of his other arms, which eagerly clasp round it, 

 and the danger of losing it being over, all the former caution 

 and gentleness is laid aside, and it is pulled to the polype's 

 mouth with a surprising violence. The worm, on its part, 

 is not without a knowledge of its enemy. The moment it 

 touches a polype's arm, it starts away, with as much seeming 

 horror as a man would do that should tread upon a snake 

 or some other dreadful creature." 



Nearly a hundred pages of Mr. Baker's book are occu- 

 pied in giving an account of experiments made by himself 

 and a friend, to show how greatly the polype may be multi- 

 plied by being cut in pieces. He seems to have had greater 

 pleasure in experiments that savour of cruelty than I trust 

 any of my young friends have ; but seeing that these experi- 

 ments, as performed by Trembley, were regarded, as we have 

 seen, by Cuvier, as giving us new views of physiology and 

 anatomy, and as they bring before us the extraordinary pro- 

 perties of this little animal, that have made it so peculiarly 

 interesting to the scientific world, we must not pass them 

 over without a brief notice. 



