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true worms, whether belonging to the Annelida of our author, 

 or not, nevertheless, we find, in his definition of the slug, the 

 word vermes employed as a principal name. 



With respect to the red-hlooded worms, with which we are 

 most immediately concerned in this place, though some of our 

 remai'ks may be foimd allusive to genera, thrown among the 

 zoophytes by Cuvier, but comprehended by M. de Blainville 

 in his classification of worms into Chetopoda and Apoda, (see 

 text) the ancients seem to have known but very imperfectly 

 the animals which constitute the class Annelida. Aristotle 

 confines himself to stating, probably with regard to the 

 nereides, and under the denomination of marine Scolopendrce, 

 that they are similar to the land Scolopendrae, but a little 

 smaller, of a redder colour, with a greater number of feet, and 

 more weak ; that they are bom in the same manner as serpents, 

 and in places full of rocks, not in the depths of the sea. 

 Aristotle has also spoken of leeches, as well as of some intes- 

 tinal worms. He adds, in another place, that they bite not 

 with their mouth, but irritate by contact only, like the acala- 

 phce, or sea-nettles (a class of zoophytes) ; that they emit an 

 unpleasant odour ; and finally — which is somewhat less credi- 

 ble — that when they are caught with a hook, they reject, or 

 vomit forth all their intestines, until they have expelled the 

 hook, and then put them in again, and go about as well 

 as ever. 



Pliny has added nothing to the statements of Aristotle re- 

 specting this class of animals. 



jElian, Oppian, Dioscorides, and Galen, have likewise done 

 nothing but copy and exaggerate what has been left us by 

 Aristotle. The two latter have merely added the remedies 

 which they conceived to be of suitable application in case of 

 accidents from the contact of the marine scolopendrae, and 

 those in the composition of which they employed the animals 

 themselves. 



