318 APPKNnix. 



Sir J. G. Dalyell describes his specimen as being about 2 inches 

 in length, tapering sliglitly from near tlie sucker, where it is between 

 2 and 3 lines in breadth. Head lanceolate, with four pair of black 

 eyes, placed mcdianally. Segments numerous and narrow. "The 

 colour is universally dark green, and its appearance much of the 

 character exposed on the fracture of a common dark green bottle. 

 The surface is faintly speckled under the microscope, and the belly 

 somewhat paler." (p. 43.) 



Fam. I. LUMBEICli)^ (page .57). 



The earthworm is the representative of this order, and it has been 

 studied with greater care, by anatomists and naturalists, than any 

 other annelid, the leech only excepted. Morren has devoted a quarto 

 volume to its anatomy * ; and the complexness of structure, which 

 he has demonstrated the worm to possess, might be Agassiz's best 

 plea for placing it at the head of its class. But there are species of 

 earthworms, and which, until recently, were considered to be con- 

 generical, and are still considered to be members of the same family. 

 There are earthworms, so simple in structure, that few or no anne- 

 lids are more so. Thus it is in almost every order we are pleased to 

 designate as natural. A very few general characters circumscribe 

 the group ; but, within the circle, the individual members present 

 such a diversity in the details of their organization, and of their 

 habits, that the study of each becomes necessary, if we would avoid 

 vague and erroneous generalizations. 



Generative organs united in one mass. Young like the parent on 

 birth from the egg. No special organs of respiration. 



There is, perhaps, no phsenomenon more general in the class than 

 the reproduction of organs and portions of the body, which may 

 have been torn away by design or accident. Species in every family 

 have been ascertained to have this remarkable power to a greater or 

 less degree ; but it was in species of the present order that the fact 

 was first experimentally ascertained, and before the physiologist 

 could contemplate it without seeing in the renovation something akin 

 to a miracle. 



Trembley having communicated to M. Charles Bonnet of Geneva 

 the result of his experiments on the Hydra or Polype, the latter was 

 instigated to try similar experiments on some small worms which he 

 found living in the fresh waters of his neighbourhood. He cut his 



* De Lumbrici terrestris historia naturali necnon anatomia tractatus. Auctore 

 Carolo-F.-A. Morren. Accedunt tabulae seri incisaj xxxii. Bruxellis. 1829. In 

 reference to this work, see Edin. Journ. Nat. & Geogr. Science, iii. 375, and Loud. 

 Mag. Nat. Hist. ix. 240. Cuvier has given a lucid view of Duges' anatomy of the 

 family in his " Analyse des travaux de I'Academie Royale des Sciences pendant 

 I'annee 1828," pp. 80-82 & 84. 



The nervous system is shortly sketched by M. A. de Quatrefages in Ann. des Sc. 

 nat. viii. 30(1847). 



