101 



down with a strong lid, not easily to be removed* 

 Such is the wisdom which the great Author of nature- 

 has imparted to some of the most inconsiderable ef 

 his creatures. 



24. The kind of sea-shrubs, as they were formerly 

 accounted, usually termed Corallines, are in reality no 

 other than cases for various species of insects. A 

 French gentleman was the first who discovered this. 

 Observing a groat number of insects lodged in se- 

 veral parts of these marine productions, he .soon in- 

 ferred, that these were only ca:-es made by these 

 creatures for their habitations, and many of them 

 have since been found to be the covers of marine 

 Polypi, a strange kind of animal, so nearly partaking 

 the nature of some vegetables, that new perfect polypi 

 perpetually grow like branches from the trunk of 

 the parent. Yea, if a polypus be cut in. pieces, every 

 piece will grow into a perfect polypi. 



A late writer informs us, cc At the isle of Sheppey, 

 I had the opportunity of seeing several branched 

 corallines alive in sea- water, by the help of a com-> 

 modious microscope, an;j was fully assured, that these 

 apparent plants were real animals, in their proper 

 cases, which were fixed to the shells of oysters an$ 

 other small shdl-fisli. And at Brighthelmstone,/l 

 saw those corallines in motion, whose polypi are con- 

 tamed in cups supported by a long stem that appears 

 full of rings, or twisted in form of a screw, in the 

 middle of the transparent stems or cases, I could ea- 

 sily discern the thread like a tender part of the ani- 

 mals. On several parts of these corallines, the;e 

 ar-j little bodies, which through the microscope ap- 

 pear as so many bladders. To the use of tiiese i was. 

 quite a stranger before, but I now discovered they 

 are habitations of young polypes, which are produced 

 here and there on the bides of the parent, as in the 

 water polypus : only in the marine ones they are 

 protected by this vesicular covering. These vesicles 

 appear at a certain season of the year, according to 

 P 3 



