Microscopical Essays. 



perfect polype. This fpecies of fecundity is fo great in thefe ani- 

 mals, that even a fmall portion of their (kin will become a little 

 polype, a new animal riling as it were from the ruins of the old } 

 each fmall fragment yielding a polype. If the young ones are 

 mutilated while they grow upon the parent, the mutilated parts 

 are re-produced ; the fame changes fucceed alfo in the parent. 

 A truncated portion will put forth young before it is perfectly 

 formed itfelf, or has acquired it's new head and tail; fome- 

 times the head of the young one fupplies the place of that which 

 would grow out of the anterior part of the trunk. 



If a polype is flit, beginning at the head, and proceeding to the 

 middle of the body, a polype will be formed with two heads, and 

 will eat at the fame time with both. If the polype is (lit into fix 

 or feven parts, it becomes a hydra, with fix or (even heads. If 

 thefe are again divided, we mall have one with fourteen ; cut off 

 thefe, and as many new ones will fpring up in their place, and 

 the heads thus cut off will become new polypes, of which fo 

 many new hydras may again be formed : fo that in every refpecl; 

 it exceeds the fabulous relation of the Lernean hydra. 



As if the wonders already related of the polype were not fuf- 

 ficient to engage our attention to thefe lingular animals, new 

 circumftances, as furprizing as the foregoing, prefent themfelves 

 to convince us of the imperfection of our ideas of animality, and 

 of the greatnefs of the power of our Lord and Saviour, who is 

 the fource and origin of every degree of life, in all it's immenfe 

 gradations, as unity is the origin of number, in all it's varied 

 feries, multiplied proportions and combinations ; now as numbers 

 may be confidered as being recipient of unity, in order to make 



9 E 2 manifeii 



