66 VERMES. 
It had thus undergone an extraordinary change from its meagre, lank, and 
empty form in abstinence. Now it was rather of a greyish-green colour. 
Stones or clean shells should be always stored in the vessels of such 
animals, for they never fail to encircle them as the knot wherein the 
body is involved gradually unfolds, which prevents rupture, either on 
account of unmanageable length, or of immoderate repletion. A glass 
cylinder was here substituted, which the animal encircled for want of 
another hard substance. In a year and ten months from the date of ac- 
quisition, it extended two feet and half, when it was delineated for the 
third time.—Fig. 6. 
Owing to accidental impurity of the water nearly a year afterwards, 
the body of this growing specimen ruptured into several parts, some of 
them surviving for about another year. Thus the animal lived entire 
towards four years in captivity, during which time it had attained com- 
pletely three feet or more in length ; and, including the separated por- 
tions, its survivance extended towards five years. Though enlarging 
rapidly, if we take the preceding facts as the ordinary course of nature, 
this creature's life should be of long duration. 
In examples originally of considerable size, rupture into parts of all 
different dimensions soon after being taken frequently occurs, when a very 
remarkable process follows in the eversion of the interior. The intesti- 
nal organ having separated spontaneously, the portions are so many tubes, 
when the purple velvety outside becomes the inside. How this ensues 
can be explained only by presuming, that one extremity of the hollow tube 
folding inwards is followed by the rest, until the inversion is complete. 
Though I do not recollect to have witnessed the permanent preser- 
vation of such ruptured animals or their parts, amputation of the ragged 
extremities of specimens will save them, when vigorous reproduction 
will sometimes ensue. Indeed, this is a precaution to be adopted with 
many of the lower and simpler animals ; removal of the injured flesh 
or skin, leaving only that which remains unhurt or entire, commonly 
proves beneficial. One having ruptured the day after arrival, I severed 
about six inches of the anterior part of the body for preservation. From 
the great lubricity of the surface, it is ready to elude even the sharpest 
