86 
LIFE, IN ITS LOWER FORMS. 
organs, together with the whole body, are exceedingly 
extensile and contractile. It is voracious, and cannibal 
in its appetite, swallowing even its fellows which are in 
the incipient erratic condition. 
Meanwhile the number of tentacles increases by the 
successive growth of new ones in the interspaces, until they 
amount to thirty-two j the Polype augments in size, and 
even produces buds, as the Hydra does, which become 
Polypes like itself, with the power of changing ultimately 
into Medusae , and at length it becomes marked with a 
series of constrictions, which, growing more and more 
deeply cut, divido the whole body into a number of dis- 
tinct portions, which resemble so many tiny tea-cups piled 
one within another. 
The changes thus described occupy the autumn and 
winter months ; on the return of spring the little cups, 
whose margins are cut into eight cleft processes, succes- 
sively detach themselves from the body, turn themselves 
over, and swim away,— minute, but veritable Modus®,— 
needing only the development which abundant nutriment 
soon supplies to become in all respects like their parents 
of the preceding season. 
Such is the brief outline of some of the wonderful 
phenomena displayed in the generation of the Sea-blubbers 
which are cast up by thousands on the shingle, to dissolve 
beneath a summer’s sun. Such is one of the works of 
Him “ whose way is in the sea, and whose path is in the 
great waters, and whose footsteps are not known.” (Ps. 
Ixxvii. 19.} 
But all the Medusse are not comprised in the umbrella- 
formed Discophora. There are other orders, which we 
