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as the branch with the tree. You are to understand 

 this in the strictest sense. The prey which the mother 

 swallows, passes immediately into her young, and im- 

 parts the same colour to it. So that the whole consists 

 of one little bowel in a great extent. The prey which 

 the young one seizes (for it fishes for it as soon as it has 

 arms) passes in like manner into the mother. They 

 nourish each other reciprocally. 



There is scarcely any polypus without buds. All of 

 them therefore are so many polypuses, or so many shoots 

 that grow on a common trunk. Whilst they are un- 

 folding, they themselves send forth smaller shoots, and 

 these smaller still. They all extend their arms on both 

 sides. You think you are beholding a very bushy tree. 

 The nourishment received by one of these shoots, is 

 soon communicated to all the rest, and to their common 

 mother; the chief of the society and the members are 

 one. The society is dissolved by little and little, the 

 , members separate themselves, are dispersed, and each, 

 shoot becomes in its turn a little genealogical tree. 



Such is the natural method by which the arm-poly pus- 

 multiplies. It may also be multiplied by slips-. There 

 is no need to mention, that when it is cut in pieces, 

 each piece in a short "time becomes a perfect polypus, 

 it were better to say at once, that the polypus, after be- 

 ing cut into small pieces, rises again from it$ ruins, and 

 the little fragments yield as many polypuses. Being 

 cut either in length or width, this extraordinary animal 

 is reproduced in the same manner, and the sources of 

 life are equally inexhaustible. 



13. But the following is what fable itself has not pre- 

 sumed to invent : bring to their trunk the heads that 

 have been struck off, they will reunite to it, and you* 

 will restore to the polypus its head. You may also, if 

 you think proper alh'x to it the head of another polypus. 

 The mutilated parts of the same or different polypuses, 

 when placed end to end,, will unite in like manner, 

 and form only a single polypus. 



What have I hitherto said? There is scarce any mi- 

 U 5 



