VERMES. 65 
easy victim. It is greedy after what is readily got. Portions of mussel 
are acceptable, and then the mouth, distending widely, gradually absorbs 
them. If the valves of a small shell be sundered, the animal fastens 
on one of them, drags it away, and consumes the contents at leisure. 
The dimensions of the intestinal canal admit the absorption of a great 
quantity of food, whereby the subject appears very different on repletion 
from its aspect under abstinence. 
Many other circumstances, combined with the preceding facts, prove 
the necessity of preserving specimens from their earlier stages. 
A small and slender animal, involved in a knot, lay among some 
corallines ; when removed to a moistened glass slider, it extricated the 
head, and unfolded the body, now extending three inches by about only 
half a line in breadth. Two black specks, of considerable size, were ex- 
posed amidst the white of the anterior extremity under the microscope ; 
the cleft, forming two lips, was sensible, and the whole body appeared 
striated longitudinally with lighter and darker lines. Thus it was seen 
in October, Plate VIII. fig. 3 ; head, enlarged, fig. 4. In three months 
it extended five inches. At this period I observed, for the first time, 
that it was wont to enter the tube of the Amphitrite ventilabrum, and 
concluded that it devoured the tenant. This conjecture was strengthened 
by the speedy disappearance of several of these animals from the vessel. 
Other food, likewise supplied, was drageed down among the mud and 
consumed. 
Owing to the great difference in the appearance of this specimen 
from adults, I had supposed it another species of the Gordius maximus, 
the one being of a uniform purple colour, but that under view, distinctly 
striped as a ribband. Some months later, however, their identity seemed 
probable. At the period of a second delineation, half a year subsequent 
to the first, the specimen extended twelve inches. Its growth had been 
rapid.—Fig. 5. To this its voracity greatly contributed. The anterior 
surface broadening much after a copious meal, exposed lighter lines ; and 
in fifteen months from the date of the acquisition of the specimen, they 
became very conspicuous on feeding. Sometimes such distension attend- 
ing a greedy repast, made me apprehensive that the body would burst. 
I 
