54 STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 



Scattered over the surface of the net and dead leaves . 

 are little dabs of dirty-looking jelly — some of them, 

 instead of the dirty hue, are almost blood-red. Ex- 

 perience makes me aware that these dirty dabs are 

 certainly Polypes — the Hydra fusca of systematists. 

 I can't tell how it is I know them, nor how you may 

 know them again. The power of recognition must 

 be acquired by familiarity ; and it is because men 

 can't begin with familiarity, and can't recognize these 

 Polypes without it, that so few persons really ever 

 see them. But the familiarity may be acquired by a 

 very simple method. Make it a rule to pop every 

 unknown object into your wide-mouthed phial. In 

 the water it will probably at once reveal its nature : 

 if it be a Polype, it will expand its tentacles ; if not, 

 you can identify it at leisure on reaching home by 

 the aid of pictures and descriptions. See, as I drop 

 one of these into the water, it at once assumes the well- 

 known shape of the Polype. And now we will see 

 what these blood-red dabs may be ; in spite of their 

 unusual color, I can not help suspecting them to be 

 Polypes also. Give me the camel-hair brush. Gen- 

 tly the dab is removed, and transferred to the phial. 

 Shade of Trembley ! it is a Polype !* Is it possible 

 that this discovery leaves you imperturbable, even 



* Teemblet, in his admirable work, Memoires pour ser^ir a 

 I'histoire d^une genre de Polypes d'eau douce, 1744, furnished science 

 with the fullest and most accurate account of fresh-water Polypes ; 

 but it is a mistake to suppose that he was the original diseoverer of 

 this genus : old Letjwenhoek had been before him. 



