218 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



known example of animals of independent life being 

 formed solely to serve as reproductive machines. 



These facts, which were received with incredu- 

 lity by those naturalists who only see living nature 

 through the medium of their own collections, were 

 repeatedly verified by my two companions; and, 

 subsequently, M. Edwards discovered that these 

 phenomena were not without a parallel. In the 

 course of our voyage, he found another species of 

 marine annelid, a near ally of the genus Myriana, 

 which separates into as many as seven segments, 

 each having a distinct head, but all united together 

 by the skin and the alimentary canal into a wreath 

 or chaplet. Now here, as in the case of the Syllis, 

 the primary individual, which certainly deserved to 

 be regarded as' the head of the family, did not con- 

 tain a single egg, whilst the six other individuals to 

 which it had given birth were gorged with ova. 



A circumstance which is well deserving of notice is, 

 that in the case of the Syllis the young animals which 

 are formed by this mode of fission do not resemble 

 the primary animals. Even before they are separated 

 from the parent stock they differ in so marked a manner 

 from it with regard to their external characters, that 

 zoologists, who would judge solely from the exterior 

 appearance of animals, have thought themselves 

 obliged, in obedience to their principles, to establish 

 two distinct species, or, perhaps, even two genera of 

 these animals, of which one is merely a portion of 

 the other. What is to be said of principles which 

 bring about such consequences as these, if it be not 

 that they must inevitably lead to errors, which are 



