TUBICOLiE. 449 



an operculum, and seals up the orifice oi" the tube when the animal 



has withdrawn into it(l). 



Serp. con/or/?</j/tc«/a(2), Ell., CoralL, XXXVIII, 2. The most 

 common species; its tubes are round, three lines in diameter, 

 and twisted. The operculum is infundibuliform, and the bran- 

 chice are frequently of a beautiful red colour, or variegated with 

 yellow, violet, Sec. Vases or other objects thrown into the sea 

 are soon covered by its tubes. 



Sei-p. vermicularis, Gm.; Mull., Zool. Dan., LXXXVI, 7, 9, 

 Sec. A smaller species, with a claviform operculum, armed 

 with 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. 

 In others the operculum is flat and bristled with more numerous 



points(3). One of them is the 



Serp. gigantea, Pall., Miscel., X, 2, 10. It is always fotmd 

 among the Madrepores, which frequently surround its tube; the 

 branchiae become spirally convoluted when they enter the latter, 

 and its operculum is armed with two small branching horns, re- 

 sembling the antlers of a deer(4). M. Lamarck distinguishes the 



Spirorbis, Lam., 



Where the branchial filaments are much less numerous — three or 

 four on each side; the tube is regularly spiral, and the animal 

 usually very small(5). 



(1) The disk of the common Serpula being funnel-shaped, has induced natural- 

 ists to consider it as a proboscis, but it is not perforated, and in all the other 

 species it is more or less claviform. 



(2) It is the same animal as the Jlrnpkitrite penicillus, Gm., or Frohobcidea, 

 Brug., or Prsboscipledanos, Fab. Column. Aquat., c, xi, p. 22. 



(o) They are the Gaieoiarije, Lam. A single operculum is seen, Berl., Schr., 

 IX, iii, G. 



(4) The same as the Terebella licornis, Abildg., Berl. Schr., IX, iii, 4; Seb., Ill, 

 xvi, 7, and as the Actinia, or Jhiimal-jlowtr, Home, Lect. on Comp- Anatom., II, 

 pi. 1. M. Savigny established his subdivision of the Serptii.jb Ctmospib.e, of 

 which M. de Blainville has since made a genus, upon this spiral convolution of 

 the branchiae. 



Add, Terebella stellata, Gm., Abildg., loc. cit. f. 5, remarkable for its opercu- 

 lum, which is composed of three plates strung together. 



(5) Serpula spirillum, Pall., Nov. Act. Petrop., V, pi- v, f. 21; — Serp. spirorbis. 

 Mull., Zool. Dan. Ill, Ixxxvi, 1—6. 



Vol. II.— 3 G 



