THE TEREBELLA. 63 



no separate digestive system, no sej^arate resjDii'atory 

 system, no muscular system, no nervous system. 

 Every part of the animal assimilates, respires, con- 

 tracts, moves ; just as in barbarian tribes every man 

 is liis own tailor, liis own purveyor, his own architect, 

 and his own lawyer. At last the principle of Division 

 of Labour emerges ; then that which is true of the 

 whole organism ceases to be true of an organ ; and 

 we have no more right to demand that an arm should 

 digest food, than that Moses & Son should preside 

 over the deliberations of Downing Street, or cook the 

 Whitebait dinner ; we have no more right to ask the 

 lungs to produce offspring, than to ask Mr Cobden to 

 take command of the Baltic fleet, and Mr Bright to 

 perform the operation for stone. Each no longer does 

 all. When, therefore, we look at these arms of the 

 Terehella, which wriggle after a week's separation from 

 the body, we see them manifest as much of life as they 

 manifested a week since. They would grow if they 

 had food ; unhappily they have lost the power of pre- 

 paring food, and they die at length from starvation. 



But put down that j^hial, and look at this which 

 contains another and far more beautiful species of 

 Terebella, by name Nebulosa (Plate VII., fig. 1.) It 

 makes itself a solid tube of earth, which it cements by 

 a mucus exuded from its surface ; and in this tube, but 

 not attached to it, the Terebella lives, merely putting 

 forth its long tentacles into the water. I have taken 

 it from its tube to watch its beauty and its manners. 

 Professor Rymer Jones, in the last edition of his Animal 



