HYDRA. 187 



divided from head to tail, the body no longer formed a tube, 

 but in each of them was open the whole length on one side. 

 Both parts, after being cut, lay in a state of collapse for 

 about half an hour. The next day each was standing up- 

 right, and spreading out its remaining portion of tenta- 

 cula, and they ate right willingly a worm given to each 

 of them. By the fourth day the wound, seemingly so 

 deadly, was healed, and each was again tubular, and tenta- 

 cula had begun to grow, to make up for those that were 

 lacking ; and in a day or two more each formed as complete 

 a polype as those that had never been subjected to the sharp 

 work of the scissors. 



In the next experiment he was not quite successful. It 

 required very delicate management, for it was nothing less 

 than turning a polype inside out. A person would naturally 

 have thought, that to any creature this would be completely 

 ruinous, that it would be quite impossible for any animal 

 to survive under such an operation as turning it inside out, 

 as one would do a glove or stocking. Yet M. Trembley 

 gives us a detailed account of the ingenious manner in which 

 he accomplished this, and, what is wonderful, that the 

 polypes did not seem to be injured by it. It was plain* 

 however, that they did not much like it, that they preferred 



