ANNELIDES —- THE EUNICE. 263 
occurring on our coasts, would alone suffice to give us a very 
different opinion of these despised, but far from despicable crea- 
tures. The whole body is divided into segments scarce a line 
and a half long, and ten or twelve lines broad, and thus consists 
of about three hundred rings. <A brain and three hundred 
ganglions, from which about three thousand nervous branches 
proceed, regulate the movements, sensations, and vegetative 
functions of an Eunice. Twe hundred and eighty stomachs 
digest its food, five hundred and fifty branchiz refresh its blood, 
six hundred hearts distribute this vital fluid throughout the 
whole body, and thirty thousand muscles obey the will of the 
worm, and execute its snake-like movements. What anastonish- 
ing profusion of organs! Surely there is here but little occasion 
to commiserate want, or to scoff at poverty ! 
And if we look to outward appearance, we shall find that 
many of the marine annelides may well be reckoned among the 
handsomest of creatures. They display the rainbow tints of the 
humming-birds, and the velvet, metallic brilliancy of the most 
lustrous beetles. The vagrant species that glide, serpent-like, 
through the crevices of the submarine rocks, or half creeping, 
half swimming conceal themselves in the sand or mud, are pre- 
eminently beautiful. The delighted naturalists have conse- 
quently given them the most flattering and charming names of 
Greek mythology, — Nereis, Euphrosyne, Eunice, Alciopa. 
Nereis. 
“Talk no more of the violet as the emblem of modesty,” 
exclaims De Quatrefages, “look rather at our annelides, that, pos- 
sessed of every shining quality, hide themselves from our view, 
so that but few know of the secret wonders that are hidden 
under the tufts of alge, or on the sandy bottom of the sea.” 
Tt 2 
