160 REPORT — 1851. 



the definite designation of the class of animals now known as the intestinal 

 worms. By ^Elian and Aristotle, this term has also been employed under 

 the same signification. The Vermis of Pliny comprehends in extent of 

 meaning the three Greek terms already explained, and by this illustrious 

 naturalist it was that the intestinal worms were first grouped under the 

 special denomination of " lumbricus," the Vermes of Pliny having a co-exten- 

 sion of meaning with the modern term worms. Neither this word nor the 

 French vers, both of which are traceable to a Latin origin, conveyed any 

 clearly bounded ideas as to the zoological place and form of the animals of 

 which they became the conventional names. In the writings of Lucretius, 

 the word Vermes is thus used : " Videre licet vivos existere Vermes stercore 

 de tetro." In the works of Celsus, the substantive Lumbricus occurs in the 

 following sense, " terram rimentur, effodiantque lumbricos." 



Der Wurm of the Germans, Vers of the French, and Worms of the En- 

 glish, are in the vernacular of these three people no doubt representative or 

 equivalent expressions, all employed in an equally confused acceptation. 

 Among the Romans, the generic name of Exsanguinia was subsequently in- 

 troduced to signify those animals, previously comprehended under the all- 

 embracing denomination of Vermes, of which the blood was colourless, viz. 

 the Insecta, MoUusca and Zoophyta of modern zoology. It was not, how- 

 ever, until the sera of the naturalists of the last century that the old Latin 

 word Vermes reached the full vagueness of its sense. In consequence of 

 having united in the definition of the term, the consideration of the softness 

 of the body to that of its elongated form, it came to embrace in the range of 

 its application all animals, except the Vertebrata, Insecta, and Crustacea. 

 To the authority of Linnaaus is ascribed by Cuvier this undue extension of 

 the word, since anteriorly to the epoch of the Swedish naturalist, Isidore of 

 Seville had grouped under the class Vermes such animals only as might with 

 zoological propriety have received that appellation. 



To the ancients, the marine worms circumscribed within the modern class 

 Annelida were almost wholly unknown. The Nereides are probably identi- 

 cal with the marine Scolopendrce of Aristotle ; leeches and intestinal worms 

 were also familiar to this author. In the writings of ^lian, Oppian, Dios- 

 corides and Galen, and even those of Pliny, no additions to the natural history 

 of these animals occur. By each, tiie sagacious statements of Aristotle are 

 servilely copied or grossly exaggerated. By Isidore of Seville, the attempt 

 was first made to classify the Lumbrici, Ascarides, leeches and flesh-worms 

 in an independent group. In his work on the Animals exsnngtiinia, Albertus 

 Magnus alludes to the leech and the earth-worm in alphabetical order. 

 Wotton has not extended the number of the animals of this class, and only 

 speaks of the Nereides under the name of Marine Scolojjendra in his book 

 upon Insects ; — of leeches among the fish ; and of earthworms under the 

 name of intestini terrce, as well as of intestinal worms under the generic de- 

 nomination of Lumbrici, Elmins of the Greeks, among the insects. Belon, 

 in his History of Aquatic Animals, mentions for the first time under the phrase 

 lumbricus marinus, in opposition to the earth-worm, which he names lum- 

 bricus terrestris, the worm which is now known as Arenicola Piscatoriim. It 

 is susceptible of historical proof that to Rondelet is due the merit of having 

 first clearly defined the genera of marine Annelids now characterized as the 

 Nereides. In his work, under the head of Sea-Scolopendra, figures of these 

 worms occur. By the same acute observer, a genus of tubicolous Annelids, 

 probably identical with our Serpul^, was also definitively described*. About 

 this period a useful compilation, under the heads Vermis and Scolopendrae, 

 * See Supplement to Griffith's edition of Cuvier, vol. xiii. 



