ANNELIDES — THE EUNICE. .'«3 



occurring on our coasts, would alone suffice to give us a very 

 different opinion of these despised, but far from despicable crea- 

 tures. The whole body is divided into segments scarce a line 

 and a half long, and ten or twelve lines broad, and thus consists 

 of about three hundred rings. A brain and three hundred 

 ganglions, from which about three thousand nervous branches 

 proceed, regulate the movements, sensations, and vegetative 

 functions of an Eunice. Two hundred and eighty stomachs 

 digest its food, five hundred and fifty branchiae refresh its blood, 

 six hundred hearts distribute this vital fluid throughout the 

 whole body, and thirty thousand muscles obey the will of the 

 worm, and execute its snake-like movements. What an astonish- 

 ing profusion of organs ! Surely there is here but little occasion 

 to commiserate want, or to scoff at poverty ! 



And if we look to outward appearance, we shall find that 

 many of the marine annelides may well be reckoned among the 

 handsomest of creatures. They display the rainbow tints of the 

 bumming- birds, and the velvet, metallic brilliancy of the most 

 lustrous beetles. The vagrant species that glide, serpent-like, 

 •through the crevices of the submarine rocks, or half creeping, 

 half swimming conceal themselves in the sand or mud, are pre- 

 eminently beautiful. The delighted naturalists have conse- 

 quently given them the most flattering and charming names of 

 Greek mythology, — Nereis, Euphrosyne, Eunice, Alciopa. 



Nereis. 



" Talk no more of the violet as the emblem of modesty," 

 exclaims De Quatrefages, " look rather at our annelides, that, pos- 

 sessed of every shining quality, hide themselves from our view, 

 so that but few know of the secret wonders that are hidden 

 under the tufts of algse, or on the sandy bottom of the sea." 



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