254 THE ANNELIDES. 



moving through water, or tunneling the sand, ad- 

 vancing or retreating in its tube, the Annelid per- 

 forms muscular feats, distinguished at once for their 

 complexity and harmony. In grace of coil the little 

 Worm excels the Serpent. In regularity of march the 

 thousand-footed Nereid out-rivals the Centipede. 

 The leaf-armed Phyllodoce swims with greater beauty 

 of mechanism than the Fish, and the vulgar Earth- 

 worm shames the Mole in the exactitude and skill of 

 its subterranean operations. Why then should " the 

 humble worm" have remained so long without an 

 historian? Is the care, the wisdom, the love, the 

 paternal solicitude of the Almighty not legible in the 

 surpassing organism, the ingenious architectures, the 

 individual and social habits, the adaptation of struc- 

 ture to the physical conditions of existence, of these 

 degraded beings ? Do not their habitations display 

 His care, their instincts His wisdom, their merriment 

 His love, their vast specific diversities His solicitous 

 and inscrutable Providence ?"* 



* Dr. Williams's " Report on the British Annelida," p. 271. 



