432 ANNELIDES. 



Amphitrite, Cuv.(l) 



The Amphiirites are easily recognized by the golden coloured setae, 

 arranged like a crown, or the teeth of a comb, in one or two rows,, 

 on the anterior part of their head, where they probably serve as a 

 means of defence, or perhaps enable the animal to crawl, or to col- 

 lect the materials of its tube. Numerous tentacula encircle the 

 mouth, and on each side of the fore part of the back are pectiniform 

 branchiae. 



Some of them construct light tubes of a regularly conical figure, 

 which they carry about with them. Their gilded setae form two 

 combs, whose teeth incline downwards. Their capacious and fre- 

 quently flexed intestine is usually filled Avith sand(2). Such is the 

 Amph. auricoma belgica, Gm.; Pall., Miscel., IX, 3 — 5. Its 

 tube is two inches long, and formed of variously coloured round 

 granules(3). 



Jlmph. auricoma capensis, Pall., Miscel., IX, i, 2. From the 

 South seasj its thin and polished tube appears to be transversely 

 fibrous, and formed of some desiccated, soft, and stringy sub- 

 stance. It is a larger species(4). 

 There are others which inhabit artificial tubes fixed to various 

 bodies. Their gilded setae form severalconcentric crowns on their 

 head, from which results an operculum that seals up their tube when 

 they contract, but the two parts of which can separate. Each foot 

 is furnished with a cirrus. The body is terminated behind in a 



(1) This genus, as it stands in Muller, Brugieres, Gmelin, and Lamarck, also 

 includes some Terehellx and Sabellx. In 1824, Diet, des Sc. Nat. II, p. 78, I re- 

 duced it to its actual limits; since then, M. Lamarck has changed my divisions 

 into genera, his PECTiNAHtiE and Sabellahije, termed Aphictenje and HEiiMEi.La'. 

 bySavigny. The Abiphithites of Lamarck are my Sabei.l.e. M. Savigny, on the 

 contrary, makes it tlie name of a family. 



(2) They are tlie Pectixarije, Lam.; Apiiicten.t., Savig. ; Ciirysouontes, 

 Oken; and the CisTEsaj of Leach. This perpetual changing of names — .and in 

 this particular case there was not even the pretext of a change of limits in the 

 group — will finally end in rendering nomenclature a much more difficult study 

 than that of facts. 



(3) The same asthe. Sabella belgica, Gm., Klein., tab. I, 5, Echinod., xxxiii. A, 

 B, and as the ^mph. auricoma. Mull., Zool. Dan. xxvi, of which Brugieres has 

 made his Jlmpkitrite dvrit. 



(4) The same AS the Sabella chrysodo?i, Gm., Berg., Stock. Mem., 1765, IX, 1, 

 3; as the Sabella capensis. Id., Stat., Mull., Nat. Syst., VI, xix, 67, which is a mere 

 copy of Bergius; as the Sabella inclica, Abildgaardt, Berl. Schr., IX, iv. See also 

 Mart. Slabber, Fless. Mem.,T,ii, 1—3. 



