ON THE BRITISH ANNELIDA. 159 



lautnescle (Vermiglioli, p. 64), so we have shortly after kemulmleskul, and it 

 would be curious if it were only by an accidental coincidence that kuml is 

 the regular Runic name for a monumental stone : thus we have ku lit rasa 

 kuml, i.e. " Bos fecit erigere monumentum" (Dieterich's Runen-Sprach- 

 Schatz, p. 124). 



The companion patera or saucer to that which I have just examined con- 

 tains an inscription, of which a fac-simile has been kindly sent to me by its 

 possessor, Mr. Beckford Bevan, and which tends to confirm what I have just 

 said. The words are : flenim dekinOl Qm-tf-lan-eQ. In Icelandic flenna 

 is^hiaius, chasma, so ihsA. flenim may =paterani, \iam=^egelida obsciiritas 

 aeris; tef=morari ; and Idn (at ldna)=)mttuum dare, credere, commodare, 

 English le7id, — so that the compound verb may denote, " he lendeth for a dark 

 dwelling," and the inscription means : Thekindul datpateram ad commoraU' 

 dum in tenebris. The Icelandic has compounds of nouns and verbs, as 

 hdlshoggra, 'to behead,' and also of verbs with other verbs, as brenni' 

 merhja, ' to brand.' 



And here I must conclude this paper. It was not my intention to discuss 

 at length all the topics on which I have touched. To do this, I must have 

 written a volume. Enough has, I think, been said for the fulfilment of the 

 object which I proposed to myself at starting — namely, to indicate the direc- 

 tion of ray own researches, and to invite either sympathy or correction from 

 those who are engaged like myself as labourers in the great vineyard of 

 ethnographic philology. 



Report on the British Annelida. By Thomas Williams, M,D. 



Land. University, Extra Licentiate of the Royal College of Phy- 

 sicians, and formerly Demonstrator on Structural Anatomy at Guy's 

 Hospital. 



Historical Introduction. 



Into the nomenclature of Zoology the word ' Annelida ' is of comparatively 

 recent introduction. Ancient naturalists adopted the term Vermis, plur. 

 Vermes = Worms, as denotive, generally, of all lower animals resembling 

 in form the leech and the earth-worm. In this uncircumscribed acceptation 

 the latter word prevailed in use among naturalists down to the epoch of the 

 writings of Lamarck. Appellations no less indefinite were employed by 

 the Greeks in characterizing all forms of animals distinguished by soft and 

 elongated bodies. The words aKwXrit,, ehXai, eXfxirs, were used by the Greek 

 writers as names of different animals marked by the common character of a 

 vermiform figure. The okuiXtiS, of Aristotle is evidently paronymous with the 

 Latin Vermis, and this latter word is conjugate with ?5erto, to turn, = i. e. tor- 

 tuous. All animals whose movements were tortuous, were known under this 

 designation. The Aristotelian word probably related only to the larva of 

 insects. The Scolex of iElian, however, is limited in its application to the 

 earth-worm : by Ctesias, a still more ancient author, the same expression 

 conveys the idea of some fabulous animal, engendered and nourished in 

 wood. The Scolezia of Athengeus denotes a parasitic worm peculiar to the 

 mule. 



The second Greek term, euXa), seems to have been one of less extended 

 employment, and to have been restricted in its application to the larvce of 

 insects. In many of the works of Hippocrates, the word ekjxivs occurs as 



