320 TOILERS IN THE SEA. 



of colour is trifling compared with the absence 

 of corpuscles from the blood of all Annelids. The 

 corpuscles, as you know, are the floating solids of 

 the blood, and on them devolve the most im- 

 portant physiological functions ; but the blood of 

 all Annelids is entirely destitute of them. 



" If we grant that the fluid hitherto universally 

 regarded as blood is truly blood, we shall have 

 to acknowledge that these Annelids have two 

 different kinds of blood ; for over and above the 

 fluid, which we see circulating in the vessels, 

 there is a fluid circulating, or, more correctly 

 speaking, oscillating, in the general cavity of the 

 body, and this fluid carries with it what are called 

 the blood corpuscles. It consists of albumen and 

 sea-water, and is named ' Chylaqueous fluid/ the 

 simplest form in which blood makes its appear- 

 ance, distinguished from the ' blood proper ' in not 

 being a fluid circulating in a system of closed 

 vessels, but a fluid which carries the chyle di- 

 rectly to the tissues. An image may render the 

 mechanism intelligible. Suppose a worm suspended 

 in a phial of water. Let the worm represent the 

 intestinal canal, and the glass phial represent the 

 external integument, the water will then repre- 

 sent the chylaqueous fluid, which moves with every 

 motion of the intestine, and fills up every cavity 

 made by its motions." The albuminous and cor- 



