A HISTORY OF 



Such arc the more obvious properties of 

 these little animals, but the most wonderful 

 still remain behind : Their manner of propa- 

 gation, or rather multiplication, has for some 

 years been the astonishment of all the learned 

 of Europe. They are produced in as great a 

 variety of manners as every species of vege- 

 table. Some polypi are propagated from 

 <'ggS as plants are from their seed ; some are 

 produced by buds issuing from their bodies, 

 as plants are produced by inoculation ; while 

 all may be multiplied by cuttings, and this to a 

 degree of minuteness that exceeds even philo- 

 sophical perseverance. 



With respect to such of this kind as are 

 hatched from the egg, little curious can be 

 added, as it is a method of propagation so 

 common to all the tribes of insect nature ; 

 but with regard to such as are produced like 

 buds from their parent stem, or like cuttings 

 from an original root, their history requires a 

 more detailed explanation. If a polypus be 

 carefully observed in summer, when these ani- 

 mals are chiefly active, and more particularly 

 prepared for propagation, it will be found to 

 bourgeon forth from different parts of its body 

 several tubercles or little knobs, which grow 

 larger and larger every day : after two or 

 three days' inspection, what at first appeared 

 but a small excrescence takes the figure of a 

 small animal, entirely resembling its parent, 

 furnished with feelers, a mouth, and all the 

 apparatus for seizing and digesting its prey. 

 This little creature every day becomes larger, 

 like the parent to which it continues attached ; 

 it spreads its arms to seize upon whatever in- 

 sect is proper for aliment, and devours it for 

 its own particular benefit : thus it is possessed 

 of two sources of nourishment, that which it 

 receives from the parent by the tail, and that 

 which it receives from its own industry by the 

 mouth. The food which these animals re- 

 ceive often tinctures the whole body, and up- 

 on this occasion the parent is often seen com- 

 municating a part of its own fluids to that of 

 its progeny that grows upon it ; while, on the 

 contrary, it never receives any tincture from 

 any substance that is caught and swallowed 

 by its young. If the parent swallows a red 

 worm, which gives a tincture to all its fluids, 

 the young one partakes of the parental colour ; 

 but if the latter should seize upon the same 

 prey, the pprent polypus is no way benefited 



by the capture, but all the advantage remains 

 with the young one. 



But we are not to suppose that the parent 

 is capable of producing only one at a time; 

 several young ones are thus seen at once, of 

 different sizes, growing from its body, some 

 just budding forth, others acquiring their per- 

 fect form, and others come to sufficient ma- 

 turity, and just ready to drop from the 

 original stem to which they had been attach- 

 ed for several days. But what is more extra- 

 ordinary still, those young ones themselves 

 that continue attached to their parent, are 

 seen to bourgeon, and propagate their own 

 young ones also, each holding the same de- 

 pendence upon its respective parent, and pos- 

 sessed of the same advantages that have been 

 already described in the first connexion. 

 Thus we see a surprising chain of existence 

 continued, and numbers of animals naturally 

 produced without any union of the sexes, or 

 other previous disposition of nature. 



This seems to be the most natural way by 

 which these insects are multiplied ; their pro- 

 duction from the egg being not so common ; 

 and though some of this kind are found with 

 a little bladder attached to their bodies, which 

 is supposed to be filled with eggs, which after- 

 wards come to maturity, yet the artificial 

 method of propagating these animals is much 

 more expeditious, and equally certain. It is 

 indifferent whether one of them be cut into 

 ten, or ten hundred parts, each becomes as 

 perfect an animal as that which was originally 

 divided ; but it must be observed, that the 

 smaller the part which is thus separated from 

 the rest, the longer it will be in coming to 

 maturity, or in assuming its perfect form. It 

 would be endless to recount the many experi- 

 ments that have been tried upon this philoso- 

 phical prodigy : the animal has been twisted 

 and turned into all manner of shapes ; it has 

 been turned inside out, it has been cut in 

 every division, yet still it continued to move ; 

 its parts adapted themselves again to each 

 other, and in a short time it became as voraci- 

 ous and industrious as before. 



Besides these kinds mentioned by Mr. 

 Trembley, there are various others which 

 have been lately discovered by the vigilance 

 of succeeding observers, and some of these so 

 strongly resemble a flowering vegetable in 

 their forms, that they have been mistaken by 



