LITHOPHYTES AND SPONGES. 331 



ing part of its fluids to its progeny that grows on it. Several young ones 

 are thus feen at once, of different fizes, growing from its body ; fomc 

 juft budding, others acquiring their form, and others come to ma- 

 turity, juft ready to drop from their original ftem. Young ones, 

 while attached to their parent, propagate their own young ones alfo, each 

 in the fame dependence on its refpedive parents, and poffeflcd of the 

 fame advantages as have been defcribed. 



It is indifferent whether one of them be cut into ten, or ten hundred 

 parts, each becomes a perfect animal ; but the fmaller part thus fe- 

 parated will be longed in coming to maturity. The animal has been 

 twifted.and turned into all manner of (hapes j has been turned infide 

 out, and cut in every divifion, yet ftill it continued to move, its parts 

 adapted themfclves again to each other, and in a fhort time it became as 

 voracious and induftrious as before. 



Befides thefe kinds mentioned by Mr. Trembley, there are others which 

 have been fince difcovered by the vigilance of fucceeding obfervers ; fome 

 of thefe fo (Irongly refemble a flowering vegetable in form, that they have 

 been miftaken by many naturalift:s. Mr. Hughes, in his Natural Hifto- 

 ry of Barbadoes, has defcribed a fpecies of this animal, but called it a 

 Jenfttive flowering plant ; he obferved it to take refuge in the holes of rocks, 

 and, when undifl:urbed, to fpread forth a number of ramifications, each 

 terminated by a flowery petal which flirunk at the approach of the hand, 

 and withdrew into its hole. This plant however was a polypus, not only 

 found in Barbadoes, but on the coaft of Cornwall, and the ihoresof the 

 Continent. 



LITHOPHYTES and SPONGES. 



THE animals we fee, much Icfs thofe we are acquainted with, bear 

 no proportion to thofe concealed from us. Though every leaf and 

 vegetable in the air fwarms with animals, yet in the water they are ftill 

 more abundant, and at fea abfolutely innumerable : the greateft part of 

 what feem vegetables growing in the deep, are but the artificial forma- 

 tion of infefts, and built for their own habitation. 



The bottom of the fca along fome fhores, and at the mouths of fc\rc- 



3 K a ral 



