So strange is the nature of this creature’s life, that the method by which other animals are killed and destroyed becomes a means of propagating these. When divided and cut to pieces in every direction that fancy can suggest, it not only continues to exist, but each section becomes an animal of the same kind. A polype cut transversely or longitudinally, in two or three parts, is not destroyed; each part in a little time becomes a perfect polype. This species of fecundity is so great in these animals, that even a small portion of their skin will become a little polype, a new animal rising as it were from the ruins of the old, each small fragment yielding a polype. If the young ones be mutilated while they grow upon the parent, the mutilated parts are re-produced; the same changes succeed also in the parent. A truncated portion will put forth young before it is perfectly formed itself, or has acquired its new head and tail; sometimes the head of the young one supplies the place of that which would grow out of the anterior part of the trunk. If a polype be slit, 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 same time with both. If the polype be slit into six or seven parts, it becomes a hydra with six or seven heads. If these be again divided, we shall have one with fourteen; cut off these, and as many new ones will spring up in their place, and the heads thus cut off will become new polypes, of which so many new hydræ may again be formed; so that in every respect it exceeds the fabulous relation of the Lernean hydra. As if the wonders already related of the polype were not sufficient to engage our attention to these singular animals, new circumstances, as surprizing as the foregoing, present themselves to convince us of the imperfection of our ideas of animality, and of the greatness of the power of our LORD and SAVIOUR, who is the source and origin of every degree of life, in all its immense gradations, as unity is the origin of number in all its varied series, multiplied proportions and combinations; and as numbers may be considered as recipient of unity, in order to make manifest the wonderful powers thereof, so the universe and its parts are adapted to receive life from the source of all life, and thus become representatives of his immensity and eternity. The polypes may be as it were grafted together. If the truncated portions of a polype be placed end to end, and then pushed together with a gentle force, they will unite, and form a single one. The union is at first made by a fine thread, and the portions are distinguished by a narrow neck, which gradually fills up and disappears, the food passing from one portion to another. Portions not only of the same, but pieces of different polypes may be thus united together. You may fix the head of one polype to the trunk of another; and that which is thus produced, will grow, eat, and multiply like another.