346 ANIMAL BIOLOG V. [Part 1 1. 



These useless organs are therefore lost, and the form though 

 admirably suited to the meaner conditions of its life becomes 

 degenerate through the meanness of these conditions. 



On the other hand, the more generally, and until recently 

 universally accepted view of the generative system of hydra is 

 that its reproductive organs exhibit a primitive condition prior 

 to the evolution of special sexual buds. In which case it has not 

 degenerated from a higher form, but has simply never become 

 so highly developed as the other hydrozoa. 



