2SC 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



SEA MOUSE (Aphrodita aculeate). 



THE FAMILY APHRODITID^E. 



Of this family the very un-worm-like animal called the Sea Mouse,* with long bristles on its feet, 

 which gives all the colours of the rainbow in the sunlight, and is common on the south coast of England, 

 is a good example. It frequently attains the length of from eight to ten inches, and is of an oval 

 shape. Its back is covered with numerous scales, or elytra, hidden under a covering of fine 

 bristles. Another, called the Porcupine Sea Mouse, f has the scales visible, ranged in double series on the 

 back. It is not so long as the Sea Mouse, nor is it as brilliant in the iridescence of its foot setse. Found 

 on the coasts, it, like its fellow, affords food for fish. The rough Scale-back J is one of the family, 

 and is smaller than the species just noticed. It is of a brown colour, and underneath it is whitish. 

 The back has twelve pairs of scales, which overlap in the middle line, and arc hairy on the free 



edges. The Worm is thus covered with armour 

 above, and the head is protected by the first 

 pair. There are four small black eyes, three 

 feelers, with knob at the end, and two palpi. 

 The animal has twenty-five pairs of feet, and 

 the setse of their dorsal and ventral lobes are 

 golden yellow. There are 7,230 setse of 

 exquisite structure, according to Dr. Baird, 

 on the animal. Most of those scaled Worms 

 move at a slow pace, but they can swim pretty 

 quickly. The proboscis is long and strong, 



and has filaments around the opening, and it leads to a short digestive apparatus. The species of 

 Lepidonotus have horny curved jaws, and are carnivorous like the others. They live on living 

 Invertebrata, and are cannibals also, and like most of the family frequent the region, below low 

 spring tides, and even live under stones on rocky shores at a less depth. Some live deeper, and 

 a few burrow in the sand very easily. One of the species of Scale-back Worms is long and narrow, 

 having seventy to one hundred and ten segments in the body. It has the scales, in pairs, forward, but 

 the under part is naked, and the scales alternate, with dorsal cirri. This Scolopendrine Scale-back 

 is four inches in length, and it frequently forms a tubular case of sand and pieces of shell for itself, 

 which it agglutinates with a mucus secretion from its body. 



This species belongs to a sub-family of the Aphroditidse, and its congeners are found on 

 the northern sea-coasts, the Australian, and Antarctic coasts, and in the Mediterranean Sea. 



The Boa-shaped Sigalion|| is also a long narrow Worm with numerous pairs of elytra, which 

 reach the end, and may amount to 140 pairs. The Worm is eight inches in length, and only a 

 quarter of an inch in breadth. The feet are very numerous, and there are horny jaws. They live 

 near low water-mark in the British and Mediterranean Seas. 



Another family is that of the Amphinomidse. They have no scales on the back, but an 

 uninterrupted series of shrub-like branchiae on each side of the body attached to nearly 

 every segment. Most are found on the shores of warm and tropical countries, and the boatmen 

 of Ascension Island wrongly consider the pricks of their setse to be poisonous. The 

 genus Euphrosyne. with an oval body made up of a few segments, which bear branchiae in tufts, 

 placed behind the feet, frequents the west and south of England, and lives down to about ten 

 fathoms. 



The family Eunicidse is distinguished by a long and numerously segmented body, and a distinct 

 and projecting head. The proboscis is short, and is furnished with several pairs of jaws placed 

 one over the other, and approximated beneath, so as to rest on a kind of under lip of the same 

 texture. The body is usually long and slender, and the number of tentacles varies. The first and 

 second segments have no feet, and the others have one-lobed feet which carry dorsal and ventral 

 cirri and comb-shaped filaments or branchise on the dorsal side. The genus Eunice has foreign 

 species more than four feet long, and one found on the English coast is two feet long, and as 

 thick as a man's finger, the body consisting of 300 segments.U It is of a dark-green colour, and the 



* Aphrodita aculeata. 



Polynoc scolopendrina. 



t Aphrodite hystrix. 

 || Sigalion boa. 



Lepidonotus sqtiamatus. 



