THE BAY OF BISCAY. 223 



Among the latter, there is one that demands 

 special notice. On a stone which had been recently 

 detached from the calcareous strata of Point Antigua, 

 I found the perfect cast of a gigantic articulate 

 animal, a worm which must have been several feet 

 long, and more than one inch broad. The outline of 

 the body, the walls of the intestine, and the mem- 

 branous partitions in the interior, could be clearly 

 distinguished on this fragment of rock, which in my 

 eyes possessed as great a value as a newly discovered 

 and perfect medal could have in those of an anti- 

 quary. Unfortunately, however, this magnificent 

 specimen was inclosed within the stonework of one 

 of the public dry docks, and I could not here make 

 use of my hammer without special authority ; but 

 thanks to the activity of our consul M. Tastu, all 

 difficulties were soon removed, and M. Peroncelli, the 

 chief engineer of the province, came to preside in 

 person over the removal of this precious relic. At 

 the present day it forms a part of the collections in 

 the Museum, and every one who examines it may 

 recognise not merely external characters but even 

 anatomical arrangements, which prove that thousands 

 of years before the existence of man the type of the 

 Articulata numbered upon our globe representatives 

 which bore a great resemblance to those of the 

 present day.* 



* We have a great number of fossils belonging to the tubicolous 

 Annelids with solid tubes, like the Serpulae, but very few are to be 

 met with belonging to the naked and soft bodied errant Annelids, 

 like the Nemertes, &c. It is evident that it could only have been 

 under favourable circumstances that the mud, hardened by the 



