THE POLYPUS. 189 



at the bottom serves are hitherto unknown, but 

 certainly not for excluding their excrements, for 

 these are ejected at the aperture by which they 

 are taken in. If the surface of the body of this 

 little creature be examined with a microscope, it 

 will be found studded with a number of warts, as 

 also the arms, especially when they are contracted; 

 and these tubercles, as we shall presently see, an- 

 swer a very important purpose. 



If we examine their way of living, we shall find 

 these insects chiefly subsisting upon others, much 

 less than themselves, particularly a kind of mille- 

 pedes that live in the water, and a very small red 

 worm which they seize with great avidity. In 

 short, no insect whatsoever, less than themselves, 

 seems to come amiss to them j their arms, as was 

 said before, serve them as a net would a fisher- 

 man, or perhaps more exactly speaking, as a lime- 

 twig does a fowler. Wherever their prey is per- 

 ceived, which the animal effects by its feeling, 

 it is sufficient to touch the object it would seize 

 upon, and it is fastened without a power of escap- 

 ing. The instant one of this insect's long arms 

 is laid upon a millepede, the little insect sticks 

 without a possibility of retreating. The greater 

 the distance at which it is touched, the greater is 

 the ease with which the polypus brings the prey 

 to its mouth. If the little object be near, though 

 irretrievably caught, it is not without great dif- 

 ficulty that it can be brought up to the mouth 

 and swallowed. When the polypus is unsup- 

 plied with prey, it testifies its hunger by opening 

 its mouth j the aperture, however, is so small, 



