282 LITTLE FOLKS 
It is said the creature has no eyes, yet it is sensitive to light. 
It has no brains, and no nerves, yet it lies in wait for its prey, flies 
from danger, and fights its enemies. What a wonderful thing, 
indeed ! 
We should have known very little about this little creature, 
but for the study of one man. About a hundred years ago he 
became interested in them, studied them, experimented on them, 
and finally wrote a book entirely about this little atom of a Polyp. 
One of his experiments was to turn it inside out, which he did 
by means of a worm, and a bristle. The worm he gave the little 
fellow to eat, and when it was swallowed he gently squeezed the 
body of the Polyp, which pressing the worm against the mouth, 
made it open. When the worm was partly out, so as to keep the 
mouth open, he took a bristle which was not sharp, and pushed the 
end of the' body up till it went out at the mouth, and thus it was 
exactly inside-out. If let alone, the astonished creature would after 
a while get back, but if fastened so that it could not, it would soon 
get used to its new way of life, and proceed to eat and grow as 
usual. 
He kept one in this inside-out state for two years, and it was 
healthy and flourishing. 
The Hydra feeds itself by seizing its prey with those long 
arms, and stuffing into its mouth. It will eat anything. Some- 
times the little worms which it swallows will try to get out, and 
how do you suppose it keeps them in ? I'm sure it's the drollest 
way you ever heard of. It simply thrusts one of its own arms into 
its stomach and holds the struggling worm till it is digested — or 
at least, dead. 
The strangest thing about it, perhaps, is its way of increasing 
its family. There are, in fact, three ways ; one by eggs, like other 
creatures ; another by throwing off a part of itself — like an arm, 
or a part of an arm — when the discarded part will at once proceed 
to grow on all the organs of the perfect Polyp. But the third way 
is the one the Hydra Viridis goes to work. It is by budding, like 
a plant. 
Look at the picture. You see on one side of the creature, a 
smaller one with body and arms all complete. That is the baby 
Hydra, and it lives there, eating and growing, till it is big enough 
to take the whole care of itself, when it becomes detached from its 
mamma, and goes off by itself. The naturalist who wrote so much 
