LERNEADiE. 313 



into dift'erent generic groups. De Blainville informs us, 

 that a year or two before that, in 1814, during a journey 

 to England, he had been led to see the necessity of sepa- 

 rating them into ditferent genera also ; but that he was 

 induced to assign them a place amongst the Entomozoa, 

 or articulated animals, viewing them, he says, " as an ano- 

 malous group of worms." He acknowledged, as Oken 

 had done, the relations which evidently existed between 

 them and the Caligidse, but still did not incline to refer 

 them to the Crustacea. This view of these curious animals 

 he published in IS 16, in his ' Prodromus de Classitication 

 nouv. du Regne Anim.,' without at the time being aware 

 what Oken had previously done. 



In 1817 Cuvier adopted the vic^■.• taken by Bosc, and 

 in his ' Regne Animal' placed the Lernese amongst the 

 intestinal worms. There is nothing very instructive in 

 this detail of the difficulties felt by systematic writers in 

 knowing or determining where these curious, and at first 

 sight dizarre-looking animals should be placed. Little 

 was known of their habits, manners, or mode of propa- 

 gation, and though as we have seen, their near relations 

 with the Caligi had been observed by several authors, 

 they had not sought to resolve the question by deeper 

 anatomical researches, or investigations into their mode 

 of life and habits. Their true position, however, Avas soon 

 about to be ascertained. Soon after Cuvier had published 

 the first edition of his celebrated work, the ' Regne 

 Animal,' a French physician at Havre, M. Surriray, made 

 the important discovery that the ova were contained in 

 the long filaments suspended from the abdomen, and that 

 the young, when born, bore no resemblance to their 

 parent, but on the contrary were extremely similar to the 

 young of the Cyclops. De Blainville recorded the fact 

 in the 'Journal de Physique,' 18.22, in his excellent 

 article, " Lernea," and fully admitted the truth of 

 Surriray 's statement. In this article he remarks the near 

 approach of his last genus among the Lerneadae to the 

 last of the Caligidae, and traced the almost insensible gra- 



