32^^ WORMS AND ZOOPHYTES. 



mals, and thruft them into their enormous ftomachs, which fill the whole 

 cavity of their bodies. The harder (hells continue for fome weeks indi- 

 gefted, but at length they undergo a kind of maceration, and become a 

 part of the fubftance of the animal. 



They may be cut in pieces, and every part will furvive the operation ; 

 each becoming a perfedt animal, endued with its natural rapacity. 



The Cuttle Fish is about two feet long, covered with a very thin 

 fkin, its flefh compofed of gelatinous fubftance, within ftrengthened by 

 a ftrong bone. It has eight arms, capable of lengthening or contracting 

 at pleafure ; when dead, they become rigid. They feed on fmall fifh, 

 which they feize with their arms; they are bred from eggs, which are 

 laid upon the weeds along the fea-(hore. 



The cuttle-fifh is found' On many coafts of Europe, but not eafily 

 caught, being furnifhe;^ by Nature with a black fubftance contained in 

 a bladder generally on the left (ide of the belly, and which is ejedted in 

 the manner of an excrement. Whenever this fifti is purfued, and it 

 finds a difficulty of efcaping, it fpurts forth a great quantity of this 

 inky liquor, by which the water is darkened, and it efcapes, by lying 

 clofe at the bottom. 



T H E P O L Y P U S. 



THE moderns have given the name Polypus to a little frefti^ 

 water creature, found at the bottom of wet ditches, or attached to 

 the under furface of the broad-leafed plants that grow on the waters. 

 Sea-Polypi, which were well known to the ancients, are from two 

 feet long to three or four; and Pliny has defcribed one, whofe arms were 

 thirty feet long. Our ditch-water Polypi feldom exceed three parts of 

 an inch long, and when gathered up, not a third of thofe dimenfions, but 

 in form they refemble the larger. 



To Mr. Trembley we owe the difcovery of the amazing properties 

 and powers of this little vivacious creature : he divided this clafs of ani^ 

 mals into four different kinds, according to their colours, green, brown- 

 ifli, flefh colour, and tufced. 



They appear in a wet ditch like little tranfparent lumps of jelly, the 

 fize of a pea, flatted on one fide ; the under fide of broad-leafed weeds 



