COMPOUND ANIMALS. 261, 



light always proceeded up the branches, from the 

 base towards the extremities. 



The examination of these compound animals was 

 always very interesting to me. What can be more 

 remarkable than to see a plant-like body producing 

 an egg, capable* of swimming about, and of choos- 

 ing a proper place to adhere to, which then sprouts 

 into branches, each crowded with innumerable dis- 

 tinct animals, often of complicated organizations 1 

 The branches, moreover, as we have just seen, 

 sometimes possess organs capable of movement and 

 independent of the polypi. Surprising as this uniun 

 of separate individuals in a common stock must al- 

 ways appear, every tree displays the same fact, for 

 buds must be considered as individual plants. It 

 is, however, natural to consider a polypus, furnished 

 with a mouth, intestines, and other organs, as a dis- 

 tinct individual, whereas the individuality of a leaf- 

 bud is not easily realized ; so that the union of 

 separate individuals in a common body is more 

 sti-iking in a coralline than in a tree. Our concep- 

 tion of a compound animal, where in some respects 

 the individuality of each is not completed, may be 

 aided by reflecting on the production of two dis- 

 tinct creatures by bisecting a single one with a knife, 

 or where Nature herself performs the task of bisec- 

 tion. We niay consider the polypi in a zoophyte, 

 or the buds in a tree, as cases where the division 

 of the individual has not been completely effected. 

 Certainly in the case of trees, and judging from 

 analogy in that of corallines, the individuals pi'opa- 

 gated by buds seem more intimately related to each 

 other, than eggs or seeds are to their parents. It 

 seems now pretty well established that plants prop- 

 agated by buds all partake of a common duration 

 of life ; and it is familiar to every one, what sin- 

 gular and numerous peculiarities are transmitted 

 Y J? 



