( IIAP. ix.] COMPOUND ANIMALS. 193 



that the union of separate individuals in a common body is more 

 striking in a coralline than in a tree. Our conception of a com- 

 pound 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 herself 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. 



