ongs
His flatten'd form with young adherent throngs;
Unknown to sex the pregnant oyster swells,
And coral-insects build their radiate shells; 90
Parturient Sires caress their infant train,
And heaven-born STORGE weaves the social chain;
Successive births her tender cares combine,
And soft affections live along the line.

[Footnote: _Prolific Volvox_, l. 83. The volvox globator
dwells in the lakes of Europe, is transparent, and bears
within it children and grandchildren to the fifth generation;
Syst. Nat.]

[Footnote: _The male polypus_, l. 85. The Hydra viridis and
fusca of Linneus dwell in our ditches and rivers under
aquatic plants; these animals have been shown by ingenious
observers to revive after having been dried, to be restored
when mutilated, to be multiplied by dividing them, and
propagated from portions of them, parts of different ones to
unite, to be turned inside outwards and yet live, and to be
propagated by seeds, to produce bulbs, and vegetate by
branches. Syst. Nat.]

[Footnote: _The lone Taenia_, l. 87. The tape-worm dwells in
the intestines of animals, and grows old at one extremity,
producing an infinite series of young ones at the other; the
separate joints have been called Gourd-worms, each of which
possesses a mouth of its own, and organs of digestion. Syst.
Nat.]

[Footnote: _The pregnant oyster_, l. 89. Ostrea edulis dwells
in the European oceans, frequent at the tables of the
luxurious, a living repast! New-born oysters swim swiftly by
an undulating movement of fins thrust out a little way from
their shells. Syst. Nat. But they do not afterwards change
their place during their whole lives, and are capable of no
other movement but that of opening the shell a little way:
whence Professor Beckman observes, that their offspring is
probably produced without maternal organs; and that those,
who speak of male and female oysters, must be mistaken: Phil.
Magaz. March 1800. It is also observed by H. I. le Beck, that
on nice inspection of the Pearl oysters in the gulf of Manar,
he could observe no distinction of sexes. Nicholson's
Journal. April 1800.]

[Footnote