62 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



is as if a head were suddenly to be developed out of your 

 lumbar vcrtebrre, yet still remain attached to the column, 

 and thus produce a double-headed monster, more fantastic 

 than fiible. Or suppose you were to cut a caterpillar in half, 

 fashion a head for the tail half, and then fasten this head to 

 the cut end of the other half — this would give you an image 

 of the Syllis budding. But in some worms the process does 

 not stop here. What the mother did, the child does, and 

 you may see at last six worms forming one continuous line, 

 with only one tail for the six. The tail indeed is the family 

 inheritance ; but reversing the laws of primogeniture, it 

 always descends to the youngest : like that elaborate display 

 of baby linen which was worked with such fondness for the 

 first-born, and has become in turns the costume of successive 

 pledges, as they appeared on this scene of life with a con- 

 stant diminendo of interest in all but parental eyes. Such, 

 in a few words, is the budding of Annelids. I omit differ- 

 ences, and many curious details, only desiring to fix the 

 reader's attention on the cardinal fact. The separation 

 finally takes place, and then we perceive the children and 

 grandchildren are not quite the same as their ancestor. The 

 fact has not been observed at all hitherto in the group of 

 Annelids named Tuhicola ; yet two of my Terebellce gave 

 me a sight of it. The first died before the separation took 

 place. The second, after a day or two's captivity, separated 

 itself from its appendix of a baby, and seemed all the livelier 

 for the loss of a juvenile which had been literally in that 

 condition of " hanging to its mother's tail," which I have 

 heard applied in metaphorical sarcasm to small boys anxious 



