THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. I4i 



ored and the other brown. Both seem very rare ; the late Professor 

 Adams, of the Queen's College, Cork, informed me he was unable to 

 recall anything answering to the description of the specimens I had seen 

 on the southern coast of Ireland. I subsequently discovered my 

 animated ribbon, with a pointed snout, described by the German 

 naturalist. Dr. Hartwig. His description was so much superior to 

 mine that I trust you may feel disposed to pardon the extract for its 

 accuracy. 



" This giant worm forms a thousand seemingly inextricable 

 knots, which he is continually unravelling and untying. When he 

 desires to shift his quarters, he stretches out a long ribbon surmount- 

 ed with a snake-like head. The eye of the observer sees no con- 

 traction of the muscles, no apparent cause or instrument of locomo- 

 tion. The microscope, however, reveals vibratory ciliae covering the 

 body. He hesitates, he tries here, and there, until at last, often at a 

 distance of 15 or 20 feet, he finds a stone to his taste, whereupon he 

 slowly unrolls his length, and while the folds are unravelling them- 

 selves at one end, they form a new Gordian knot at the other. It is 

 from 30 to 40 feet long." 



In " The Cruise of the Blake," the younger Agassiz gives a re- 

 presentation of a vagrant annelid, sagitta, dredged in the Atlantic. 

 It presents a ventral fin and the rounded tail of a fish. Many of us, 

 (judging from its outward appearance), would feel disposed to 

 place it above the hag-fish or lamprey, but I presume the nervous 

 axis has been detected and the classification is quite correct. 

 It certainly leads one to think of connecting links and such things. 

 The description afforded us is not so full or satisfactory, perhaps, as 

 some of the other chapters, but the work itself, taken altogether, is 

 to this continent of greater interest and importance than any record 

 ever published hitherto. It is the noblest contribution that the 

 United States ever gave to science. No work possesses greater fasci- 

 nations for the naturalist. We may all learn something from it. Can 

 this be said of many of the novels we find so often in the hands of 

 the younger generation ? 



The marine annelids of Anticosti (at least the few I saw) struck 

 me as devoid of the brilliant colors noted elsewhere, but they are 

 singularly active. They have need to be so, for their principal foes 

 there, the eels especially, are exceedingly numerous. At night I 

 have seen them by dozens on the margin of the shore feeding on the 



