LECTURE XIL 
191 
course of a very few days. If cut into three 
pieces, the middle portion will produce both the 
head and tail ; and in short. Polypes may be cut 
in all directions, and will still reproduce the defi- 
cient organs. The natural mode of propagation 
in this animal, is by shoots or offsets, in the man- 
ner of a plant ; one or more branches or shoots 
proceeding from the parent stem, and dropping off 
when complete 5 and it frequently happens that 
these young branches will produce other branches 
before they themselves drop off from the parent, 
so that a polype may be found with several of its 
descendants still adhering to the original stock or 
stem 5 thus constituting a real genealogical tree : 
but the Polype also, during the autumnal season, 
deposits eggs, which evolve themselves afterwards 
into distinct animals, and thus it possesses two 
inodes of multiplication. It appears a paradoxical 
circumstance that a Polype should be able to 
swallow a worm three or four times as large as 
itself, which is frequently observed to be the case 4 
but it must be considered that the body of the ani- 
mal is extremely extensile ; and that it possesses 
the pow' er of stretching according to the size of the 
substance which it swallows. It seizes its prey 
