128 
ANNELID KS. 
ORDER I. 
TUBICOL^ * 
Some of tlie Tubicolse form a calcareous, homogeneous tube, proba- 
bly the result of transudation, like the shell of the Mollusca, with 
which however they have no muscular adhesion ; others construct one 
by agglutinating grains of sand, fragments of shells and particles of 
mud, by means of a membrane, also unquestionably transuded; the tube 
of others again is entirely membranous or horny. To the first belongs 
the genus 
Serpula, Lin . 
The calcareous tubes of the Serpulae twine round and cover stones, 
shells, and all submarine bodies. The section of these tubes is some- 
times round, and sometimes angular, according to the species. 
The body of the animal is composed of numerous segments ; its 
anterior portion is spread into a disk, armed on each side with seve- 
ral bundles of coai’se hairs, and on each side of its mouth is a tuft 
of branchiae, shaped like a fan, and usually tinged with bright 
colours. At the base of each tuft is a fleshy filament, one of which, 
either on the right or left, indifferently, is always elongated, and 
dilated at its extremity into a variously formed disk, which serves a 
an operculum, and seals up the orifice of the tube when the animal 
has withdrawn into itf. 
Ell., Corail., XXXVIII, 2. The most 
common species ; its tubes are round, three lines in diameter, 
and twisted. The operculum is infundibuliforum, and the bran- 
chiae are frequently of a beautiful red colour, or variegated with 
yellow, violet, &c. Vases or other objects thrown into the sea 
are soon covered by its tubes. 
Serp. vermicularis, Gm. ; Mull., Zool. Dan., LXXXVI, 7^ 9^ 
&c. A smaller species, with a claviform operculum, armed 
Avith two or three small points. The branchiae are sometimes 
blue. No spectacle is more beautiful than that of a group of 
these Serpulae when well expanded. They are found on the 
coast of France. 
* M. Savigny adds the Arenicolce to this order, and changes its name to Ser- 
PULACEA ; M. Lamarck, adopting his plan, converts the Serpulacea into Seden- 
TARiA. The genera of my Tubicola form the family of the Amphitrites, Savigny, 
and those of the Amphitrit.ea and Serpulacea, Lamarck. They form the order 
Entomozoaria Chetopoda Heterocrisina, Blainville, who, in defiance of his 
own definition, places there Spio and Polydorus. 
•f- The disk of the common Serpula being funnel-shaped, has induced naturalists 
to consider it as a proboscis, but it is not perforated, and in all the other species it 
is more or less claviform. 
X It is the same animal as the Awp'/uVri/e penia7/«s, Gm., or Prohusculea, Bnig., 
or Prohoscipleetanos, Fah. Column. Aquat., c, xi, p. 22. 
