262 MISCELLANEOUS. 



ved with difficulty, from being liable to entangle itself in every foreign 

 substance, and is easily mutilated in its struggles for liberation. 



None have survived longer than twenty-four days. They generally 

 live only a week. 



The only specimen shewing an air-bubble was fig. 17 ; and in this 

 specimen I am induced to think the pencils at the extremity of the 

 limbs should be shewn as cleft. 



An animal called the Briarean scolopendra, represented in the Plates 

 of the voyage of MM. Quoy and Gaymard, bears much resemblance 

 to the preceding, only the posterior extremity is greatly prolonged. 

 It was found in the Straits of Gibraltar. 



I have not observed any other representation of it. 



PLATE XXXVI. 



FIG. 17. Nereis phayma The Spectre Nereis as delineated by Mr Peter 



Syme, enlarged. 

 16. Another specimen. 

 Jl. Enlarged limb of fig. 16, shewing the cleft. 



The study of transparent animals is commonly attended with great 

 embarrassment. We are frequently uncertain whether we actually be- 

 hold them or not whether they are entire or mutilated. 



8. OCTODACTYLUS iNH^BENS. Plate XXXVt Figs. 1, 2. 



Among the decrees of Nature, the least comprehensible is that which 

 ordains the preservation of one animal by the destruction of another : her 

 ostensible cares are directed to the safety of her creatures ; therefore there 

 seems a strange inconsistency that life shall be sustained only at the ex- 

 pense of life. 



But there are, besides, innumerable examples, where living animals 

 are infested by multitudes of parasites, to their torment, if not to their 

 destruction. They are consumed as the prey of generation after genera- 



