TUE BAY OF BISCAY. 171 



body appear little projections, from whence issue 

 bundles of sharp and cutting lances or broad fans, 

 serrated like semicircular saws. These are the feet 

 of the Hermella. Finally, the back is furnished 

 with cirrhi, recurved like sickles, and whose colour 

 varies from dark red to grass green ; these organs re- 

 present the branchiae, which, by an exception that has 

 hitherto been found to be unique in this group, are 

 distributed over every ring instead of being united 

 to the head like the petals of a flower. 



These external characters are in themselves suffi- 

 cient to attract the attention of the naturalist to the 

 Hermellas, and most keenly to excite his curiosity. 

 Their internal organisation is not less remarkable. 

 These singular animals realise in their actual ana- 

 tomical details a theoretical view which might 

 hitherto have been justly regarded as a mere abstract 

 idea. 



In the Articulata generally, the two sides of the 

 body are similar to one another, so that these animals 

 may be regarded as formed by the reunion of two 

 symmetrical halves, cemented together along the 

 median line, and attempts were long since made to 

 confirm this view by the study of their embryology ; 

 and Newport, one of the most distinguished compa- 

 rative anatomists of England, had shown that in the 

 young Myriapods *, the abdominal nervous centres, 

 the ganglia, are developed in two halves, which 

 become subsequently united. I had made a similar 

 observation in respect to a Eunice sanguinea, which 



* This class is nearly allied to that of insects, and it includes 

 amongst others the Centipedes and Millipedes. 



