COLLECTION OF POLYPI. 29 



The general aspect of these habitations, which 

 are called polypi, and the interior form and distri- 

 bution of the cells, are so diversified that they 

 have furnished the grounds of a division into 

 orders and genera. We have a very numerous 

 series of them: but it may be proper to say 

 something of the animal itself, before we speak 

 of the characters of the orders. 



The animals we have hitherto considered, are 

 provided with an interior system of organs more 

 or less complicated ; their size, and the consis- 

 tency of their flesh or envelopes, have admitted 

 of their being preserved dried or in spirits ; but 

 so excessively small, soft, and glutinous are the 

 polypi, that the instant they are taken out of the 

 element in which they live, they dissolve into a 

 watery substance, in which it is with the greatest 

 difficulty that any trace of their organization can 

 be seen. 



However it has been observed through the 

 transparency of the water, that their body is of a 

 cylindrical form, like a tube, shut at one end, and 

 furnished at the other with moveable tentaculae, 

 by means of which the animal seizes its food, 

 rejecting the superfluous parts by the help of the 

 same tentaculae and by the same aperture. 



These tubes considered separately are so many 

 distinct animals, but as they are in a manner 



34 



