ABRANCHIA. 397 



Tlie Antilles possess a large one, which inhabits a tube of the consistence of leather. The PhyllodocemaxiUosa, 

 Ranzani, named Polyodante by Reinieri, and Eumolpe maxima, Oken, appear to be nearly allied, havintr the 

 same trunk and jaws, and neither genus having perhaps been described from perfect specimens. Many species 

 of Annelides remain, which have been too imperfectly described to admit of their being characterized ; and the 

 Myriane, and two or three other genera of M. Savigny, must remain to be examined anew. 



Finally, we place here a new and very singular genus, which I name 



Ch^topterus. 

 Mouth with neither jaws nor trunk, but furnished above with a lip, to which three small tentacles 

 are attached. A disk then follows with nine pairs of feet, after which is a pair of long silky bundles 

 like two wings. The lamina-formed gills are attached more towards the upper surface than the lower, 

 and range along the middle of the body. 



[Here also ought probably to be placed the genus 

 Peripatus of Guilding, founded upon a West Indian 

 species, which burrows in the sand, and which has 

 much perplexed naturalists as to its relations. By 

 Guilding it was considered as molluscous ; by Mac 

 Leay as forming the passage between the IuUd<e and 

 the annulose annelidous worms; whilst Gray (Zool. 

 Misc. p. 6) asserts that it is annelidous, and connects 

 Nereis with Lumbricus.] 



Fig-. 205.— Peripatus lulifori 



THE THIRD ORDER OF THE ANNELIDES,— 



AB RANCH lA,- 



Have no respiratory organ appearing externally, and seem to respire either, as in the 

 Earthworms, over the whole surface of the skin, or, as in the Leeches, by internal cavities. 

 Some of them have yet bristles to serve for locomotion, of which others are deprived, and tliey 

 accordingly fall into two families. 



THE FIRST FAMILY OF THE ABRANCHIA,— 



The Abranchia Setigera, — 

 Which are provided with silky bristles, comprise the Earthworms and Naides of Linnaeus. 



The Earthworms (Lumbricus, Linn.) — 

 Are characterized by a long, cylindrical body, divided by transverse furrows into a great number of 

 rings, and by a mouth without teeth : they require to be thus subdivided : 



The True Earthworms (Lumbricus, Cuv.) — 

 Have neither eyes, tentacles, gills, nor cirrbi : a distinct enlargement, particularly during the breeding 

 season, indicates where they attach themselves to one another in tlie act of copulating. Internally 

 they have a straight, wrinkled intestine, and some whitish glands towards the fore part of the bodv, 

 which appear to serve for generation. It is certain that they are hermaphrodite, and it seems that 

 their contact only serves to excite eacli otlier to self-fecundation. According to M. Montegne, the 

 eggs descend between the intestine and external envelope, as far as around the rectum, where thev 

 hatch, the young crawling out alive by the anus. M. Dufour slates, on the contrary, that they deposit 

 eggs analogous to those of the Leeches. Their nervous chord consists of a series of an infinitude of little 

 ganglia, serrated one against another.* 



M. Savigny subdivides them further into Enterion, having on each ring four pairs of little bristles, eight 

 throughout, to which belongs 



The Common Earthworm (L. terrestris, Linn.). — This well-known species attains to nearly a foot in length, with 



♦ T is is common to very many species, as M. Savigny first observed. Ai many as twenty liave been been characterised. M. Ougcs only 

 distinguishes six 



