414 HISTORY OF 



darkened, and then it escapes by lying close at the bottom. In 

 his manner the creature finds its safety ; and men find ample 

 cause for admiration, from the great variety of stratagems with 

 which creatures are endued for their peculiar preservation. 



CHAP. IV. 



OF THE POLYPUS. 



Those animals which we have described in the last chapter 

 are variously denominated. They have been called the Star-fish, 

 Sea-nettles, and Sea-polypi. This last name has been peculiarly 

 ascribed to them by the ancients, because of the number of feelers 

 or feet of which they are all possessed, and with which they 

 have a slow progressive motion ; but the moderns have given the 

 name of Polypus to a reptile that lives in fresh water, by no 

 means so large or observable. These are found at the bottom 

 of wet ditches, or attached to the under surface of the broad- 

 leafed plants that grow and swim on the waters. The same dif- 

 ference holds between these and the sea-water polypus, as be- 

 tween all the productions of the sea, and of the land and tlie 

 ocean. The marine vegetables and animals grow to a monstrous 

 size. The eel, the pike, or the bream, of fresh-waters is but 

 small ; but in the sea they grow to an enormous magnitude. 

 The herbs of the field are at most but a few feet high ; those of 

 the sea often shoot forth a stalk of a hundred. It is so between 

 the polypi of both elements. Those of the sea are found from 

 two feet in length to three or four, and Pliny has even de- 

 scribed one, the arms of which were no less than thirty feet 

 long. Those in fresh waters, however, are comparatively mi- 

 nute ; at ihtir utmost size seldom above three parts of an inch 

 long, and when gathered up into their usual form, not above a 

 third even of those dimensions. 



It was upon these minute animals that the power of dissec- 

 tion was first tried in multiplying their numbers. They had 

 been long considered as little worthy the attention of observers 

 and were consigned to that neglect in which thousands of mi- 

 nute species of insects remain to this very day. It is true, in- 

 deed, that Reaumur observed, classed, and named them. By 



