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THE ANNELIDA. 
THE Annelida are a group of animals which were for a long time 
confounded with worms, on account of their long, slender bodies. 
One would think that they could offer but little interest; and yet, 
as Aristotle says, there is nothing in Nature either low or despic- 
able, everything is beautiful and worthy of admiration. The 
annelids, amongst all the marine animals, possess perhaps the 
most graceful forms, the most elegant appendages, and the most 
brilliant colours. Cuvier was one of the first who studied them 
with attention; he called them red-blooded worms, because 
he found that in most of them the blood was tinted, in which 
particular they approach terrestrial animals. But since the time of 
the illustrious zoologist, certain groups have been found whose 
blood varies in colour—violet, blue, green, and yellow; and there 
are some, also, in whom the vital fluid is colourless. Lamarck gave 
them the name which they now possess, from the ring-formation of 
their bodies. Their rings number twenty, thirty, sixty, or eighty, 
and sometimes more. In the Lwnice sanguinea there are three 
hundred; in the Phylodoce laminosa (an animal scarcely a yard 
long) there are at least nine hundred rings. These rings are ridges 
—thick or thin, flat or rising up—and separated from one another 
by indentations. All the rings are alike, except those at the head 
and tail, which are slightly modified. The creatures are either 
naked or are well protected by a firm, solid coating. Those that 
are naked bear a strong resemblance to worms or grubs. Some 
of them hollow out for themselves straight galleries in the earth; 
others congregate by hundreds and thousands in sand-hills; and 
others construct for themselves habitations which resemble honey- 
combs. The species which possess a solid envelope inhabit a 
straight, calcareous tube—some being rigid, others flexible. The 
creature can entirely ensconce itself in this tube, like a mollusk 
