128 C O N C H O L O G Y. 



CBfe, The Vermlculi and Dentalia are 

 found floating, as it were, in their Shells, 

 no ways fixed, but quite loofe and free, 

 like any thing in a (heath. However, to 

 reconcile this feeming paradox, and per- 

 haps it is the real ftate of the cafe ; it is 

 more reafonable to advance, that thefe ani- 

 mals are abfolutely loofe from their Shells, 

 but rather that they are only very flightly 

 connecled to it : and, perhaps, when the 

 Shell is complete or full grown, they de- 

 tach themfelves from the mufcles. Ana- 

 logous to what lobftars and other crufta- 

 ceous fi(h do when they caft their yearly 

 crufls ; that is, they detach the mufcles 

 of the old crufts, to affix them on their 

 new ones. 



There is another obfervatlon to be made 

 with regard to Vermiculi, viz. that thefe 

 teftaceous animals border on, or conned 

 fo clofe to, all the coral Polypes, that it is 

 impoffible to fix their diftinft limits, fo 

 as to pronounce definitively whether Corals 



Ihould 



