VOL. XLIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 387 



Few of these l6 polypi were of an equal size; those most distant from the 

 origin of the branches were the largest, and their form also was the least like to 

 that of a bell. At 3 in the morning on the 3d of June, the number of the 

 polypi in the cluster was considerably increased ; they were 1 ff at midnight, and 

 he could now count 26, though he could only see part of the cluster, the rest 

 of it being beyond the focus of the microscope; and at half an hour after 7 in 

 the morning, he counted at least 40 polypi in that same part which he could see 

 of the cluster. 



In order to judge with more certainty of the progress of the multiplication of 

 these polypi ; he counted also those of another cluster, which was so situated as 

 to be entirely within the reach of one of his magnifiers. This cluster began to 

 be formed about 8 in the evening of the 2d of June; i. e. it was then that the 

 round body first began to split itself into 2. At 1 1 the same night, that cluster 

 consisted of 8 polypi; at half after 7 the next morning of 64, and before night 

 of 1 1 at the least. So that in about 24 hours there were formed by repeated 

 divisions of one single round body, no fewer than 110 polypi. 



The cluster first spoken of continued to increase from the 2d of June at half 

 an hour after 8 at night, when it first began to form itself, till the 13th, when 

 the polypi began to detach themselves from it; and there remained no more oa 

 the cluster on the 15th. 



The polypi which are at the extremities of the principal branches are constantly 

 the largest; they are those which divide themselves the most frequently; and one 

 of the 2 polypi resulting from this division is generally larger than the other. 

 The largest remains at the end of the principal branch, while the less serves to 

 form a lateral branch, and is itself the principal of all the polypi which that lateral 

 branch is to bear. 



One can hardly now be without curiosity to know, what those round bodies 

 really are; those sorts of bulbs which contain in themselves the principle, from 

 whence these whole clusters are to be produced. What gives origin to these 

 bulbous bodies? are they produced in the clusters by divisions and subdivisions, 

 as the polypi themselves are, which in other species are themselves the principles 

 of the clusters.'' in these other species, every polypus may become the principle 

 of a cluster and of a groupe of polypi, as soon as it has detached itself from the 

 cluster where it had its origin. When one of these has once fixed alone any 

 where, and divided itself, it nowise difiers, either in shape or in size, from any 

 of the polypi that were in the cluster it is now parted from, nor from any of 

 those others that will be formed in the cluster, it is by its own future division and 

 subdivisions to produce. But how is it with the new species we are now consi- 

 dering? does everv polypus among these, as soon as detached from the cluster, 



3 D 2 



