oS BOOK. OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 



CHAP. II. 



ANIMALS. 



Fountain of elegance, unseen thyself, 



What limit owns thy beauty, when thy works 



Seem '.o possess, to faculties like mine, 



Perfection infinite ! the merest speck 



Of animated matter, to the eye 



That studiously surveys the wise design, 



Is a full volume of abundant art. 



IN ascending from the Vegetable to the Animal 

 kingdom, we cannot help our attention being for- 

 cibly engaged by the singular construction, and 

 amazing properties of those little wonders found at 

 the bottom of ditches, and adhering to the underside 

 of the broad leaves of Aquatic Plants, known by the 

 name of Freshwater Polypuses. See that little 

 thing in form of a funnel or bell, adhering by the 

 lower extremity to some extraneous substance at 

 the bottom of the water ! Observe how it shoots 

 out its slender arms from the margin of its wide 

 mouth, and casts them around, occasioning a vortex 

 in the fluid! See how those insects, after being 

 drawn into that vortex, are caught hold of by its 

 arms, and conveyed to the mouth with a celerity 

 that is astonishing ; but for these signs of life and 

 animation would you not have taken what you first 

 saw to be a flower? Now observe how it shoots 

 out from its sides something in form of buds; return 

 in a few days, and, what do you behold? these 

 buds converted into perfect Polypuses, but still ad- 



