OF NATURAL HISTORY. 2^ 



tends. It includes net a young polypus, but is the real ani- 

 mal in miniature, united to the mother as a fucker to the pa- 

 rent tree. The food taken by the mother palTes into the 

 young by means of a communicating aperture. When the 

 fhooting polypus has acquired a certain growth, this aperture 

 gradually clofes, and the young drops off, to multiply its fpe- 

 cies in the fame manner. As every part of a polypus is ca- 

 pable of fending off Ihoots, it often happens, that the young 

 before parting from the mother, begin to fhoot ^ and the 

 parent animal carries feveral generations on her own body. 

 There is another fingularity in the hiftory of the polypus. 

 When cut to pieces in every direction fancy can fuggeii, it 

 not only contin-ues to exift, but each fection foon becomes ?.n 

 animal of the fame kind. What is ftill more furpriling, when 

 inverted as a man inverts the finger of a glove, tlie polypus 

 feems to have fuffered no material injury ; for it foon begins 

 to take food, and to perform every other natural fundlion. 

 Here we have a wonderful inftance of animal ductility. No 

 divifion, however minute, can deprive thefe worms of life. 

 What infallibly deftroys other animals, ferves only in the 

 polypus, to multiply the number of individuals. M. Trem- 

 bley, in the courfe of his experiments, difcovered, that dif- 

 ferent portions of one polypos could be ingrafted on another. 

 Two tranfverfe fe^Slions brought into contact quickly unite, 

 and form one animal, though each ledtion belongs to a differ- 

 ent fpecies. The head of one fpecies may be ingrafted on 

 the body of another. When a polypus is introduced by the 

 tail into another's body, the two heads unite, and forni one 

 individual. Purfuing thefe ftrange operations, M. Trembley 

 gave fcope to his fancy, and, by repeatedly fplitting the head 

 and part of the body, formed hydras more complicated than 

 ever ftruck the imagination of the moft romantic fabulifts. 



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