388 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1747. 



fix itself also elsewhere, and there give origin to a new cluster ? or are they only 

 the bulbous bodies abovementioned, that have this prerogative, of being capable 

 to produce a new colony ? 



These questions and doubts greatly raised his curiosity, from the time he first 

 began to see the progress of a cluster of polypi, formed by the division and the 

 subdivisions of one of these round bulbous substances ; and that which now follows, 

 is what he had been able to collect from the various observations, and from the 

 several experiments, which he made, while endeavouring to acquire some satis- 

 faction with respect to the same doubts and questions. 



To know whether the polypi, which detach themselves from these clusters, do 

 each of them contain in themselves the principles of other new clusters, he took 

 all the precautions he had taken in other cases, and such as he had found easily 

 to succeed with the clustering polypi of other sorts. But all was to no effect, 

 and he could never find that any thing was produced by these polypi so detached. 

 He had therefore every reason to presume that these polypi do not contain the 

 principles of new clusters, and it seemed the most probable that they all perish 

 without ever producing any thing whatever. 



When he first began to seek for the origin of the round bulbous bodies here 

 mentioned, he immediately recollected those other round bodies he had before 

 taken notice of, and which he at the first suspected to be insects preying on these 

 polypi. He therefore again sought for them in the clusters already formed; he 

 soon found several of them, and he perceived that they neither attacked the polypi 

 nor changed their situation. He then concluded that these round bodies were 

 really the very bulbous ones in question, and whose origin he was now seeking 

 for; he applied himself therefore to observe several of them, and he then disco- 

 vered the following facts. 



Some days after the clusters had begun to form themselves, he saw come out, 

 not from the extremities of the branches, but from the bodies of the branches 

 themselves in different places, small round buds, which grew very fast, and which 

 arrived at their greatest size in 2 or 3 days. These bodies much resembled the 

 galls which grow on the leaves of oaks ; they were placed on the branches of the 

 clusters, just as those galls are usually placed on the fibres of the leaves; and 

 these bulbous substances really contain the principles of the clusters. 



Two or 3 days after these bulbs have begun to form, they detach themselves 

 from the branches out of which they sprung, and go away swimming till they 

 can settle on some body, which they meet with in the water, and to which they 

 immediately fix themselves by a short pedicle. The bulbs are then nearly round, 

 only a little flatted on the underside, the pedicles continually lengthen themsehes 

 by degrees for about 24 hours, and during the same time the bulbs also change 



