ORDER I. TUBICOLZ. 247 
tegral part of the body, but remaining quite unconnected with it. Thus 
these tubicole Annelides spend their whole life within doors, only now and 
then peeping out of their prison with the front part of their head. 
As they lead so different a life from their roaming relations, their internal 
structure is very different. Thus we find here no bristling feet or lateral 
respiratory appendages ; but, instead of these organs, which in this case 
would be completely useless, we find the head surmounted by a beauiful 
crown of feathery tentacula, which equally serve for breathing and the 
seizing of a passing prey. Completely closed at the inferior extremity, the 
tube shows us at its upper end a round opening, the only window through 
which our hermit can peep into the world, seize his food, and refresh his 
blood by exposing his floating branchiw to the vivifying influence of the 
water. 
“Do not, therefore, reproach him with vanity or curiosity if you see him 
so often protrude his magnificently decorated head ; butewejoice rather that 
this habit, to which necessity obliges him, gives you a better opportunity 
for closer observation. Place only a shell or stone, covered with serpulas or 
cymospiras, in a vessel filled with sea-water, and you will soon sce how, 
in every tube, a small round cover is cautiously raised, which hitherto her- 
metically closed the entrance, and prevented you from prying into the 
interior. The door is open, and soon the inmate makes his appearance. 
You now perceive’ small buds, here dark violet or carmine, there blue 
or orange, or variously striped. See how they grow, and gradually expand 
their splendid boughs! They are true flowers that open before your eye, 
but flowers much more perfect than those which adorn your garden, as they 
are endowed with voluntary motion and animal lite. 
“At the least shock, at the least vibration of the water, the splendid tufts 
contract, vanish with the rapidity of lightning, and hide themselves in their 
stony dwellings, where, under cover of the protecting lid, they bid defiance 
to their enemies.” 
Not all the tubicole Annelides form grottos or houses of so complete a 
structure as those I have just described. Many content themselves with 
agelutinating sand or small shell fragments into the form of cylindrical 
tubes. But even in these inferior architectural labors of the Sabellas, 
Terebellas, Amphitrites, &c., we find an astonishing regularity and art ; 
for these elegant little tubes, which we may often pick up on the strand, 
where they lie mixed with the shells and alow cast out by the flood, consist 
of particles of almost equal size, so artistically glued together, that the 
delicate walls have everywhere an equal thickness. The form is cylindrical, 
or funnel-shaped, the tube gradually widening from the lower to the up- 
per end. 
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