ANNELIDA TERRICOLA. 



Respiration effected either in membranous sacculi contained 

 within the body, or by means of arborescent tufts appended 

 to various parts of their external surface. 



Mode of reproduction, almost all hermaphrodite, and generally 

 requiring the congress of two individuals for mutual impreg- 

 nation. 



THE SECONDARY CHARACTERS. 



ANNELIDA. Body long, cylindrical, and formed by a great 

 number of rings. Eyes, tentacula, or branchice, none. Mouth 

 without teeth. Instruments of attachment totally wanting, the 

 only external appendages to the body being a number of mi- 

 nute and almost imperceptible bristles, which project from the 

 different segments and assist in progression. 



THE SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



ANNELIDA TERRICOLA. Body soft and compressible. No 

 external organs of respiration. They attain sometimes to the 

 length of a foot, and have as many as a hundred and twenty 

 rings, each of which is furnished with little bristly projections 

 which answer in some sort the purpose of feet. They live in 

 general beneath the surface of the ground, perforating the soil 

 in all directions. 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



The term VERMES, or Worms, has been used with great 

 vagueness in natural history, and employed to designate 

 animals to which the name is not appropriate. It is now, 

 however, more restricted in its application, and is made to 

 include only a small class of animals which have some cir- 

 cumstances in common, but still not exactly alike. They are 

 sometimes called, by way of distinction, Worms with red 

 blood, as they are the only invertebrated animals which have 

 red blood; and sometimes Annelides, from the structure of 

 their body, which is of a cylindrical, elongated shape, divided 

 into a great number of rings. 



The nervous system of the Annelidans resembles that of 

 the Insects and Crustacea. Their organs of sense consist 

 merely in some fleshy tentacula, which surround the mouth 

 and answer the purpose of feeling and touching. Their blood 

 is nearly of the color of that of the vertebral animals, but not 

 of so bright a red. It circulates in a double system of vessels, 

 but there is no distinct, fleshy heart to give it motion. They 



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