FRESH-WATER POLYZOA. 237 



CHAPTER IX. 



FliESH-WATER POLYZOA. 



The reader now approaches a group of microscopic 

 animals whose beauty is so exquisite, so delicate, so 

 refined in its comeliness and grace, that no description 

 could be too extravagant, no rhetoric too fervid when 

 applied to the charming little creatures. Yet most of 

 this fairness seems wasted so far as human apprecia- 

 tion is concerned, for how few among the millions of 

 human beings in all the land -know, or care to know, 

 what the Polyzoa are, or how they look, or where they 

 live, or whether they live at all? Nature was never in 

 better mood than when she began the development of 

 the Polyzoa, so she fashioned them with care, and 

 placed them most abundantly in all our slow streams 

 and shallow ponds, where they live and die and melt 

 away in the shade of the lily-leaves, where no human 

 eye sees their loveliness until a wandering lover of 

 Nature spies them and is happy. 



The word Polyzoa is formed of two Greek words 

 meaning "many animals," referring to their habit of 

 living in colonies, which sometimes reach an immense 

 size. These clusters are, with but one exception, 

 always attached to some submerged object, except im- 

 mediately after leaving the egg, when the young ani- 



