Of the frefh Water Polype, 199 
This re-produ£Hon is performed fooner or later, as the 
weather is more or lefs warm. In the height of fummer 
the arms will fometimes begin to fhcot in twenty-four 
hours, and in two days have been in a ftate to eat, but 
in cold weather it will be fifteen or twenty days be- 
fore the head is formed. 
If a polype, having-young ones, be cut tranfverfly, 
the young ones continue to grow after the fedtion. 
It often happens, that the fecond parts which have 
had no young ones at the time of the fedtion, have had 
young fhoots before itfelf could eat, and before it had 
arms. 
In whatfoever place a polype was cut, whether at the 
middle or near either end, the experiment equally fuc- 
ceeded, and each portion became a compleat polype, 
which walked, eat, and multiplied. 
A polype being cut clofe under the arms, as at fig. 
401. and though fmall as it was, it became a compleat 
polype, which at the beginning was all arms. 
If a polype be cut tranfverfly into three or four pieces; 
the pofterior end of the firft produces a tail, the anterior 
end of the lafl a head, and the intermediate pieces ac¬ 
quire both head and tail. 
To cut a polype length wife, it null be made to con- 
trad! as much as poilible, becaufe the more it is con¬ 
tracted the larger its body is : therefore put the polype 
upon a flip of white paper in a fmall drop of water, and 
when by touching it is very much contradted, drain 
away the water, whereby its upper and under fides co- 
lapfe, and the polype becoming fpread in breadth, remains 
fixed upon the paper; then with a fharp pair of feifiars 
cut through both paper and polype, the divided parts will 
adhere to the paper like a jelly, but may be removed 
therefrom to the objedt-carrying glafs, or glafs Aide, with 
O 4 the 
