AMPHITRITE. 243 



that the secretion of the substance forming the sheath is not confined to 

 a single part of the animal. 



The theory of such reproductions involves the naturalist in extraor- 

 dinary embarrassment. It is not surprising, indeed, that accidental 

 wounds or lacerations should heal ; that the energies of animated nature 

 should restore the integrity of mutilated organs, essential for the preser- 

 vation of the injured individual. But, to behold the evolution of the 

 most complex organization, where none, to the senses, previously existed, 

 nor could exist, in accordance with the integrity and safety of the ani- 

 mated being, or that its development should be dependent on an act of 

 violence, for the purpose of replacing that whereof it had been deprived, 

 is enough to perplex the mind. 



Some imperceptible constituent atom, or its residue, may escape 

 destruction, when we attempt to eradicate an organ, and survive to en- 

 large in its place, and expand in similar form. But the same argument is 

 not 'of obvious application to the evolution of similar parts from another 

 site, one where there is no rational probability of the regular course of 

 nature having provided for their existence. Here we seem to reach a 

 postulate, demanding the indefinite the universal diffusion of germs, 

 ready for development wherever the obstacles to it cease : or of some 

 creative power, effecting a secretion of such matter as may produce new 

 organs, in form and substance. If, assuming that instead of the universal 

 diffusion of elementary atoms, or the universal subsistence of creative 

 energies, both may be partial, there ought to be certain limited points 

 from which such complex organization originates, as the branchial plume 

 is produced by artificial sections. On the other hand, by assuming the 

 universality of such points, we are led to conceptions of tenuity which 

 baffle language to express. 



The preceding deductions have been afforded by at least sixty living 

 specimens, the finest of which were natives of the Shetland and Orkney 

 Islands. 



Note. A specimen of the Amphitrite bombyx once occurred, which 

 was lodged in a black tube, three inches long, adhering inside of an old 



