240 Earth Worms. 



living eight days in fresh water. March, 1820. — Cystice'r- 

 cus Rud. (Hydatis Anct.) hydatigena Pall. — C. cellulosa 

 Rud. — Ccenurus Mud. cerebralis Gm. — Echinococcus Rud. 

 //umanus Zed. 



(To be continued.) 



The ILumbrici [the Earth Worms (p. 234.) ], which re- 

 ceived a large share of Savigny's attention, and of which he 

 has described upwards of twenty species, as he considers 

 them (the characters of them are in Cuvier's Analyse des 

 Travaux, fyc, for 1821), before confounded under the general 

 name of L. terrestris, have been since much attended to by 

 Leon-Dufour, Duges, and Morren. Leon-Dufour's obser- 

 vations, contained in two memoirs in the Ann. des Scien. for 

 1825 and 1828, chiefly respect the mode of reproduction, 

 which he asserts to be oviparous, and not viviparous, as sup- 

 posed by Montegre {Mem. du Mus. 9 i. 242.) and Sir E. 

 Home (Phil. Trans., 1823, p. 143.) He has discovered the 

 capsules at the depth of 5 ft. or 6 ft. in the earth, and found 

 them analogous to those of the genus i/irudo. M. Duges, 

 like Leon-Dufour, considers (Ann. des Scien., 1828, vol. xv. 

 p. 284.) these animals as oviparous, and thinks that what 

 Montegre took for living young were only intestinal worms. 

 Morren's work (De Lumbrici terrestris Historia Naturali nee 

 non Anatomia Tractatus. Bruxell. 1829. 4to), which was 

 crowned by the University of Ghent, is of the most elaborate 

 nature, and, taken in connexion with the researches of the 

 French naturalists, leaves scarcely any thing to be desired as 

 far as regards the anatomy and physiology of the Zumbrici. 

 Its author seems in doubt, however, about the numerous 

 species described by Savigny and others. He is more in- 

 clined to regard them as simple varieties. He in some mea- 

 sure reconciles the conflicting testimonies of Montegre and 

 Leon-Dufour with respect to the mode of reproduction, by 

 asserting it to be both oviparous and ovoviparous (Jenyns's 

 Report on the Recent Progress and Present State of Zoology, 

 published in the Report for 1834 of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science.) 



I have, in the course of the practice of gardening, met with 

 many eggs of the earth worm, and think that I was first told 

 that they were such by the late Rev. G. R. Leathes (p. 1 64, 

 165.); and there is proof that they have been such in the fact 

 that, in rupturing many of those met with, a few have included 

 a living miniature worm. The rest of those ruptured have 



