2o6 COMPOUND ANIMALS. [chap. ix. 



innumerable distinct animals, often of complicated organiz- 

 ations? The branches, moreover, as we have just seen, 

 sometimes possess organs capable of movement and 

 independent of the polypi. Surprising as this union of 

 separate individuals in a common stock must always 

 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 distinct individual, whereas the 

 individuality of a leaf-bud is not easily realised ; so that 

 the union of separate individuals in a common body is 

 more striking 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 distinct creatures by 

 bisecting a single one with a knife, or where Nature hersell 

 performs the task of bisection. We may 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 propagated 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 propagated by buds all partake of a 

 common duration of life ; and it is familiar to every one, 

 what singular and numerous peculiarities are transmitted 

 with certainty, by buds, layers, and grafts, which by 

 seminal propagation never or only casually reappear. 



