BOOK OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 39 



hering to the parent. See how, by a sudden Jirkj 

 they separate, and immediately fix on other situa- 

 tions; cut one of these in two, the upper ^art shoots 

 out a tail, and the under produces a head; cut one 

 in three, and the upper and under do the same, 

 while the middle division produces both a head and 

 a tail ; cut one down lengthways to the middle, and 

 you have a monster with two heads; divide these, 

 again and again, as often as you please, and you 

 have a Hydra with many heads, in short cut the 

 Polypus into ten, or ten hundred parts, the effect 

 will be the same, and you will have as many Poly- 

 puses. 



If the Sensitive Plant, the Hedysarum Gyrans, 

 and Venus' Fly-Trap, may be considered as so 

 many links at which the vegetable creation ends, 

 these living plants, if we may use the expression, 

 and animal flowers, which are found adhering to 

 the rocks on the sea shore, may, as well as the Oys- 

 ter, and other shell -fish (which form the connection 

 betwixt the animal and the mineral kingdom,) be 

 reckoned among those at which the mysterious "and 

 multitudinous order of beings begins, which is con- 

 tinued in such an infinitude of shapes and sizes, 

 shades and differences, and possessed with such a 

 number gf dissimilar appetites and instincts, from 

 the lowest gradation amongst the number of these 

 imperfectly formed animals, till it arrives at that 

 most complete piece of Nature's workmanship that 

 cape-stone of the inferior creation, or link whick 

 unites it with superior intelligences Man. 



