You may tear it off if you will--he
cares not. You may cut him into a dozen pieces, they say, and each
one will grow, as a potato does. I suppose, however, that he also
sends out of his mouth little free ova--medusoids--call them what you
will, swimming by ciliae, which afterwards, unless the water beetles
stop them on the way, will settle down as stalked polypes, and in
their turn practise some mystery of Owenian parthenogenesis, or
Steenstruppian alternation of generations, in which all traditional
distinctions of plant and animal, male and female, are laughed to
scorn by the magnificent fecundity of the Divine imaginations.
That dusty cloud which shakes off in the water as you move the weed,
under the microscope would be one mass of exquisite forms--Desmidiae
and Diatomaceae, and what not? Instead of running over long names,
take home a little in a bottle, put it under your microscope, and if
you think good verify the species from Hassall, Ehrenberg, or other
wise book; but without doing that, one glance through the lens will
show you why the chalk trout grow fat.
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