Microscopical Ess- ay 3 



feventh generation ; nay, they have even the faculty of multiply- 

 ing while they adhere to the parent. The arms of the young 

 ones do not fprout till the body has attained fome length, 



Several excrefeencies, or buds, often appear at the fame time 

 on a polype, which are fb many polypes growing from one trunk; 

 whilft thefe are developing, they alfo bud, which buds again put 

 forth little ones, the parent and the young. ones forming a fingulaE 

 kind of animal fociety, in which all participate of the fame life* 

 and the fame wants. In this ftate the parent appears like a (hrub? 

 thick fet with branches. Several generations, are often thus: 

 attached to one another, and all to the parent polype; after a 

 time, this tree of polypes, or hydras is decompofed, and gives 

 birth to new generations, or frefh genealogical trees. Here we 

 fee a furprizing chain of exiftence continued, and numbers of 

 animals naturally produced, without any union of fexes. 



From Fig. iS } Plate XXIII. B, the reader may form an idea of; 

 the promptitude with which thefe creatures increafe and multiply % 

 the whole group formed by the parent and it's young was about 

 an inch and an half long,, and one inch broach; the arms of the 

 mother and her nineteen little ones hanging down towards the 

 bottom of the veffel ; the animal would eat about twelve mono- 

 culi per day, and the little ones about twenty among them, or 

 rather more than thirty for the groupe. 



Of the Re-production of Polypes* 



A polype cut tranfverfely, or longitudinally, in two or three 

 parts, is not deftroyed, each part in a little time becomes a- 



