172 APHBODITA. 



The beautiful green and golden hair loses its brilliance a day or two 

 after separation. 



This animal is not rare. 



PLATE XXIV. 



FIG. 15. Aphrodita aculeata, back. 

 16. Belly. 



The subjects of the two preceding chapters seem to have proved 

 particularly embarrassing to naturalists, whose modes of treating them 

 are extremely different. Some have been content with description brief 

 and simple, others have offered representations of the external form, and 

 a few have occupied themselves with minute and laborious dissections. 

 However meritorious the last may be, and though perhaps the most 

 serviceable to the cause and permanence of natural history, as a science 

 founded on internal organization, it is plain that such a system is quite 

 incompatible with the views and practice of those observers desiring to 

 ascertain the nature of living animals, by gaming acquaintance with their 

 habits. Neither can dissection ever prove as popular a method of ar- 

 rangement, as one derived from external configuration and habits com- 

 bined. 



If it be extremely difficult to ascertain the proper name, or the pre- 

 cise functions of some of the external organs, much more so must it be 

 to declare the office of many of those which are internal. But structural 

 characters are beautiful as a profound study, which merits all encourage- 

 ment from the contributions to our knowledge which it has furnished. 



But whatever may have been the individual views of the respective 

 authors adopting these different modes of research, ah 1 seem eager to quit 

 the pursuit, as if deterred by the extreme and unsatisfactory embarrass- 

 ments attending its protracted prosecution. 



I do not feel quite assured, that in the various figures given in this 

 volume of the animals ranked as Annelides, that they are not identified 



