230 PROLIFEROUS INCREASE OP BUDS. 



At this stage, if we omit the stalk, there is no very 

 remarkable dissimilarity to the parent Medusa. Like 

 it, this has a capacious stomach, with strong powers 

 of digestion, and a voracious appetite. But the little 

 creature soon exhibits characters which in the animal 

 kingdom can be compared only to the growth of the 

 compound Polypes, and which closely resemble the de- 

 velopment of plants from buds, or of the lower classes 

 of ciyptogamic plants from their spores. The lower 

 part of the Medusa-bud throws out branches, or stolons, 

 and these form new buds ; or, buds may rise from any 

 parts of the surface of the parent one, though it is more 

 usual for them to spring from the lower part. When 

 the powers of life are active, several of these secondary 

 buds grow at the same time. They make their appear- 

 ance as prominences, and gradually increase in size. As 

 each enlarges, its apex pushes out, and curves down- 

 wards till it reaches an object to which it can attach 

 itself. The apex having thus attached itself becomes 

 the base, and the former base by which the bud was 

 connected with the parent-bud separates, and is changed 

 into the apex, in which a mouth, gradually surrounded 

 with tentacula, is formed. And thus from a single 

 bud a multitude of new buds, each endowed with simi- 

 larly prolific powers, are developed. Nor does there 

 seem any fixed period at which this system of growth 

 by budding necessarily ceases. Dr. Reid kept some 

 "colonies" of these buds for upwards of seventeen 

 months before any material change in habit was observed 

 to take place. During all this time stolons and buds 

 continued to be formed and to die, but still the colony 



