CATALOGUE 



OF THE 



ABENICOLIDAE 



HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE CHAETOPODA, WITH 

 SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE POLYCHAETA AND 

 THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 



NATURALISTS as remote as Aristotle were acquainted with Chaeto- 

 poda and other worms, the records of which thus extend backwards 

 to the earliest works on natural history. The chief object of the 

 historical account given in the following pages is to trace the 

 principal stages in the growth of knowledge regarding the Chaeto- 

 poda, especially the Polychaeta and their classification, and to 

 indicate in the different schemes of classification proposed the 

 position of the worms which form the subject of the present 

 Catalogue. 



Aristotle recorded in his " Historia Animalium " the occurrence 

 of marine scolopendrae, 1 similar to their terrestrial congeners but 

 somewhat smaller, redder in colour, and having a larger number of 

 more slender feet. He stated that these animals are to be found in 

 the neighbourhood of rocks, and that they do not occur in very deep 

 water. The animals referred to were probably nereidiform worms. 

 Aristotle also mentioned helminthes or intestinal worms. Pedacius 

 Dioscorides 2 described the use in medicine of Scolopendra marina, 

 earthworms and leeches. 



Allusions to marine scolopendrae occur in the writings of Pliny 3 

 and Aelianus, 4 and the former also referred to Hirudo and Lwribricus. 



1 Lib. ii, cap. xiv, 2. o-KoXoTrtvSpai 



2 De Materia Medica [written probably about 60 A.D.] . Recens. C. Sprengel, 

 Lipsiae (1829), pp. 174, 195, 708, 709. 



3 Nat. Hist., Lib. ix, cap. Ixvii, 3 [about 78 A.D.] . 



* Pe Natura Animal., lib. vii, cap. xxvi [about 220 A.D.] . 



