624 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1742. 



kind. The body of the polypus can contract itself, so as not to be above a line 

 or thereabouts, in length. Both in contracting and extending itself, it can stop 

 at any degree imaginable, between that of the greatest extension, and of the 

 greatest contraction. 



The length of the arms of the polypus differs also according to the several 

 species : those of one of the species can be extended to the length of 7 inches 

 at least. The number of legs or arms is not always the same in the same spe- 

 cies. We seldom see in a polypus, come to its full growth, fewer than 6. The 

 same may be said of the extension, and of the contraction of the arms, as was 

 said concerning the body. The body and the arms admit of inflexions in all 

 their parts, and that in all manner of ways. From the different degrees of 

 extension, contraction, and inflexion, which the body and the arms of the po- 

 lypus admit of, result a great variety of figures, which they can form them- 

 selves into. 



These insects do not swim ; they crawl upon all t[\e bodies they meet with 

 in the water; or on the ground, on plants, on pieces of wood, &c. Their 

 most common position is, to fix themselves by their posterior end b, to some- 

 thing, and so stretch their body and arms forwards into the water. 



They make use of their progressive motion, to place themselves conveniently, 

 so as to catch their prey. They are voracious animals : their arms extended 

 into the water, are so many snares which they set for numbers of small insects 

 that are swimming there. As soon as any of them touches one of the arms, it 

 is caught. The polypus then conveys the prey to its mouth, by contracting or 

 bending its arm. If the prey be strong enough to make resistance, he makes 

 use of several arms. A polypus can master a worm twice or thrice as long as 

 himself. He seizes it, he draws it to his mouth, and so swallows it whole. If 

 the worm come endways to the mouth, he swallows it by that end ; if not, he 

 makes it enter double into his stomach, and the skin of the polypus gives way. 

 The size of the stomach extends itself, so as to take in a much larger bulk than 

 that of the polypus itself, before it swallowed the worm. The worm is forced 

 to make several windings and folds in the stomach, but does not keep there 

 long alive ; the polypus sucks it, and after having drawn from it what serves 

 for his nourishment, he voids the remainder by his mouth, and these are his 

 excrements. According as the weather is more or less hot, the polypus eats 

 more or less, oftener or otherwise. 



They grow in proportion to what they eat ; they can bear to be whole 

 months without eating, but then they waste in proportion to their fasting. 



The observations in the Phiios. Trans, principally concern the manner in 

 which these insects multiply. What is there said of them, is true and exact. 



