ON ANNELIDA. 81 



fined : animal similar to the nereides, open mouth, with two 

 thick tentacula behind the head, contained in a tubular shell, 

 composed of grains of sand retained in a vaginal membrane. 

 But as at this period, the animals which form the arenaceous 

 tubes, were but very ill known, it is not surprising that at- 

 tention was given rather to the tube than to the animal, for 

 the purpose of increasing the species of this genus. To this 

 was doubtless owing the addition made by Gmelin to the 

 species of Linnaeus, of a great number of the cases or sheaths 

 of the phryganece, or of neighbouring genera of insects, the 

 larvae of which are found in fresh water, and of which, in 

 imitation of Schroter, whom he has unluckily copied, he 

 makes as many species, as there are different bodies which 

 enter into the composition of those tubes. Some modern 

 zoologists, and particularly the French authors, have adopted 

 this genus with some modification, and others have taken no 

 notice of it. 



Thus, M. de Lamarck, in the first edition of his Inverte- 

 brated Animals, makes no mention of the Sabellge. It appears, 

 according to his definition, that he arranged the known species 

 under Amphitrite ; but in his last work, he established under 

 the name of Sahellarice, a new genus for one of the species of 

 the Sabellae of Linnseus. 



M. Cuvier, in his " Tableau Elementaire," appears to have 

 intended to place the true Sabella? of Linnaeus in the genus 

 Amphitrite ; but in the Regno Animal, he has named Sabellae, 

 those chetopods, whose tube is usually clayey, whose gills 

 are fan-like, and without appendages in the form of a comb. 

 Of the habits of these animals there is nothing to remark. 



To pursue this genus through the subdivisions of the text 

 would be useless. We should find nothing to entertain our 

 readers, but the controversies and blunders of naturalists, and 

 the everlasting revolutions of nomenclature, 



Te RE BELLA is a genus of Chetopoda, with artificial tubes, 



VOL. XIII. G 



