TUBICOLJJ. 131 



AMPHITRITE, Cuv. 9 * 



The Amphitrites arc easily recognized by the golden coloured setae, 

 arranged Eke a crown, or the teeth of a comb, in one or two rows, 

 on the anterior part of their head, where they probably serve as a 

 means of defence, or perhaps enable the animal to crawl, or to col- 

 lect the materials of its tube. Numerous tentacula encircle the 

 mouth, and on each side of the fore part of the back arc nectiniform 

 branchiae. 



Some of them construct light tubee of a regularly conical figure, 

 which they carry about with them. Their gilded setae form two 

 combs, whose teeth incline downwards. Their capacious and fre- 

 quently flexed intestine is usually filled with sand f. Such is the 



Amph. auricoma belyica, Gm. ; Pall., Miscel., IX, 3 5. Its 

 tube is t\vo inches long, and formed of variously coloured round 

 granules J. 



Amph. auricoma capensis, Pall., Miscel., IX, i, 2. From the 

 South Seas ; its thin and polished tube appears to be transversely 

 fibrous, and formed of some dessicated, soft, and stringy sub- 

 stance. It is a larger species . 



There are others which inhabit artificial tubes fixed to various 

 bodies. Their gilded setae form several concentric crowns on their 

 head, from which results an operculum that seals up their tube when 

 they contract, but the two parts of which can separate. Each foot 

 is furnished with a cirrus. The body is terminated behind in a 



Lio. Trans., XII, 11 ; T. nebuJoaa, Id. Ib., 12, 2; T. constrictor, Id. Ib., 13, 1 ; 

 T. vtnusta, Ib., 2 ; he also calls one of them T. cirrhata, Ib., XII, 1 ; but which 

 does not appear to be the same as that of M tiller. Add T. varialrilis, Risso, &c. 



N.B. M. Savigny makes two other divisions 'of Terebellse, the T. PHYZELL*, 

 which have but two pairs of branchiae, and the T. IDALIJE, that have but one pair. 

 Among the latter -would come the Amphitrite cristata, Miill., Zool. Dan., Ixxi, 1,4; 

 Amph. tentricosa, Bosc., Ver., I, vi, 4 6. 



* This genus, as it stands in Mailer, Brugires, Gmelin, and Lamarck, also in- 

 elude* some TerebellaE and SabelUe. In 1824, Diet, des Sc. Nat. II, p. 78, I reduced 

 it to its actual limits ; since then, M. Lamarck has changed my divisions into 

 genera, his PECTINARI^E and SABELLARI., termed APUICTENJJ and HERMELL.E 

 by Savigny. The AMPUITRITES of Lamarck are my SABELL^E. M. Savigny, on 

 the contrary, makes it the name of a family. 



f They are the PECTINARI^B, Lam. ; APHICTBN<E, Savig. ; CHRvgoooNTKS, 

 Oken ; and the CI&TEN.-E of Leach. This perpetual changing of names and in 

 this particular case there was not even the pretext of a change of limits in the group 

 will finally end in rendering nomenclature a much more difficult study than that of 

 facts. 



J The same as the Sabclla btlyica, Gm., Klein., tab. I, 5, Ecbinod., xxxiii, A, B, 

 and as the Amph. auricoma, Mull., Zool. Dan. xxvi, of which Brugtfres has made his 

 Amphitrite dork. 



The same M the SaUUa ckrytodon, Gm., Berg., Stock. Mem., 1765, IX, 1, 3 ; 

 as the Sabtlla capcnsis, Id., Stat., Mull., Nat. Syst., VI, xlx, 67, wkich is a mere 

 copy of Bergius ; as the Sabclla wtdtco, Abildgaart, Berl. Schr., IX, iv. See also 

 Mart. Slabber, Fless. Mem., I, U, 13. 



