138 METAMORPHOSES OF MAN 



Trembley discovered upon these living cylinders a 

 number of small elevations, which gradually increased 

 in length, developed tentacles at their free extremities, 

 and ended by becoming detached, when they were 

 found to resemble in every particular the body from 

 which they had sprung. 



Here, Trembley observed two important phenomena 

 which till then had been regarded as belonging to 

 j)lants exclusively — multiplication by fissuration and 

 by buds. He also saw these pseudo-plants feeding 

 like beasts of prey, seizing with their tentacles the 

 aquatic insects as they swam along, swallowing them 

 — sometimes as large as themselves — wholesale, digest- 

 ing them, and rejecting the effete matters by the same 

 orifice through which the food was admitted. These 

 facts seemed to him to decide the question. The 

 beings which he had been studying so long were 

 actually and certainly animals. Reaumur, who was 

 consulted as to this conclusion, adopted it as soon as 

 he had seen the creatures themselves, and thereupon 

 gave them the name of polyps, which has since been 

 applied to the entire class. With the assistance of 

 Bernard de Jussieu he found a species akin to that of 

 Holland in the outskirts of Paris, and other animals 

 also which he thought, but incorrectly, were related 

 to it * 



Trembley' s discoveries so fully confirming those of 

 Peysonnel, produced quite a sensation ; in fact, to use 

 the language of the period, " court and town " were 



# The " polypes a panache " (Polyzoa), of Keaumur and his con- 

 temporaries, have only a faint external resemblance to the true 

 polyps. The latter belong to the sub-kingdom Eadiata ; the former 

 have been properly ranked among mollusca. 



