THE COASTS OF SICILY. 43 



scribed a larva which, according to his statement, 

 had undergone the most singular metamorphoses, 

 and which he believed to belong to a family of the 

 Annelids, viz., the Nereids. These animals belong 

 to the Articulata, but the larva was said to possess 

 at one time the characters peculiar to Polypes, which 

 constitute a section of the sub-division of the 

 Radiata. In this case, facts and theory were com- 

 pletely at variance, and many persons in Milne 

 Edwards's place would have treated with contempt 

 an objection borrowed from a small worm who plays 

 but an insignificant part in the animal scale ; but from 

 his familiarity with the study of the inferior animals 

 this naturalist was led to adopt a different course, 

 and from the very first day of our arrival in Sicily, 

 the embryology of the Annelids constituted the spe- 

 cial subject of his studies. From the very com- 

 mencement of his researches, his own views were 

 confirmed in all respects by the clearest and most 

 definite facts, while the apparent exception that had 

 been recorded by Loven disappeared when it was 

 tested by an investigation fully as profound as that 

 of the learned Swede. Milne Edwards ascertained, 

 however, at the same time that Annelids are sub- 

 jected, before they assume their definite form, to 

 metamorphoses, which may, up to a certain point, be 

 compared with those of insects. 



We will take, by way of illustration, one of those 

 sedentary species, which from their size and their 



the honour of having discovered the gastro- vascular system of that 

 group of Gasteropodous Molluscs, which I have proposed to desig- 

 nate under the name of the PMebenterata. (See Vol. I. p. 348.) 



