I 



ORGANS 



OF 



Sect. VII. 1.5, 



animals, as the fea anemonies, which are faid to adhere to the fiiores 

 or fubmarine earth, bj one extremity, while they pullulate, or fpread 

 out by the other into living ramifications of unmeafurable lengths. 



Thofe who have attended to the habits of the polypus, which is 

 found in the flagnant water of our ditches in July, affirm, that the 

 young ones branch out from the fide of the parent like the buds of 

 trees ; and after a time feparate themfelves from them. This is fo 



■.' 



ftretching itfelf in a 



analogous to the manner in which the buds of trees appear to be pro 

 duced, that thefe polypi may be confidered as all male animals, pro 

 ducing embryons, which require no mother to fupply them with a 

 nidus, or with nutriment and oxygenation* 



Secondly, this paternal or lateral vegetable progeny is beautifully 

 feen in the wires of knot-grafs, polygonum aviculare ; and in thofe of 

 ilrawberries,. fragaria vefca ; and in the roots of potatoes. The la^- 

 teral generation of thefe plants by wires, while each new plant is 

 thus chained to its parent, and continues to put forth another and 

 another, as the wire creeps onward on or beneath the ground, is eX' 

 a6lly refcmbled by the tape- worm,, or taenia, fo often found in the 



chain quite from the flomach to the 

 redum. Linneus alSerts, *^ that it grows old at one extremity, while 

 it continues to generate young ones at the other, proceeding ad infi- 

 nitum, like a root of grafs. The feparate joints are called o-ourd- 

 worms, and propagate new joints like the parent without end, each 

 joint being furnifhed with its proper mouth and organs of digeftion.'*^ 

 Syftema Naturae, vermes, tenia. In this animal there evidently ap- 

 pears a power of reprodu£lion without any maternal apparatus for 

 the purpofe of fupplying nutriment and oxygenation to the embryon, 

 as it remains attached to its father till its maturity, and in this refped: 

 exa£lly refembles the lateral generation of vegetables. 



5. This fubjedt of the lateral produdion of vegetables from male 

 parents without the intervention of a female is further rcfembled by 

 the innumerable progeny of the aphis, which rifes from an egg in the 



CD 



-fl 

 P 



fprin 



to' 



