EUNICE. 67 



speak for himself : his pen can best portray what his patient 

 industry has so admirably displayed. 



" Upon the Isle de Chaussy," says that distinguished anatomist, 

 "the wandering Annelids occupied my special attention. Hitherto 

 I had only known this numerous family of sea-worms through 

 engravings ; and although I had formed a tolerably exact notion 

 of their structure, I had not the slightest idea how many points 

 of interest attached to them. When I had once surprised within 

 their secure retreats the Polynoc with its lucid scales, the PJiyl- 

 lodoce with its hundred bright green rings, the Eunice with its 

 purple crest, the Tcrebella surrounded by a crowd of innumerable 

 living cables which serve it in the place of arms, when I had 

 seen displayed before my eyes the rich fan of the Sabella, and 

 the enamelled collar of the Serpula> I no longer smiled, as I had 

 done before, at the thought of the naturalist having conferred 

 upon them the most charming names he could think of. These 

 despised creatures seemed to me no less worthy of a naturalist's 

 homage than the most brilliant insect or the fairest flower. Let 

 no one prate to me any more about the violet as a pattern of 

 modesty ! The coquette ! See how she shows from far her fresh 

 tuft of green leaves, and scatters abroad the perfume that invites 

 you to approach. More skilful than her rivals, she knows that 

 mystery is the greatest of all attractions, and that the rose herself 

 loses by displaying her charms in broad daylight ; therefore it is 

 that she seeks the obscurity of the woods and the shelter of the 

 hedge-side. But look at the Annelids ! what do they lack when 

 compared with the most splendid inhabitants of earth or air ? Yet 

 they shun the light, they withdraw themselves from our view, but 

 with no design to attract ; and the naturalist alone knows where 

 to seek the strange wonders which are hidden within the recesses 

 of the rock and beneath the sandy beds of the ocean. You may 

 smile at my enthusiasm, but come and judge for yourself. All 

 is prepared ! Our lamp gives a light almost equal to a jet of gas, 

 while a large lens, mounted upon a moveable foot, receives the rays 

 of light, and concentrates them upon our field of view. We have 

 just placed upon the stage a little trough filled with sea-water, in 

 which an Eunice is disporting itself. See how indignant it is at 

 its captivity ; how its numerous rings contract, elongate, twist into 

 a spiral coil, and at every movement emit flashes of splendour in 

 which all the tints of the prism are blended in the brightest me- 

 tallic reflections. It is impossible, in the midst of this tumultuous 

 agitation, to distinguish anything definitely. But it is more quiet 



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