102 METAMOEPHOSES OE MAN 



spouse, and seems to live upon her juices just as she 

 does upon those of the fish. In "both, the locomotive 

 and sense organs have disappeared ; and as the two 

 lead a purely vegetative existence, they may fairly 

 be regarded as mere reproductive machines. 



We shall now leave the Articulata and pass on to the 

 Annuloida or worms, which with the former consti- 

 tute the sub-kingdom Annulosa. The first are purely 

 oviparous animals; the second present in a well- 

 marked manner the phenomena of geneagenesis, which 

 we shall examine in another chapter. In reality, the 

 class Annelida is the only one which presents pheno- 

 mena of the kind we are now alluding to. In a work 

 to which perhaps I have already alluded too often,* I 

 described, at length, the metamorphoses of Terebella 

 according to the investigations of M. Edwards, and 

 those of Hermella according to my own researches. 

 Here, I shall limit myself to stating that in these crea- 

 tures also the organism is considerably altered in pro- 

 portion as the mode of life differs from what it has 

 been heretofore. These animals, which are at first of 

 an erratic character, afterwards become sedentary, 

 and are inclosed in tubes which they never leave. In 

 one respect this is a step backwards ; for locomotion 

 is one of the most characteristic attributes of the 

 animal, which, when deprived of it, is injured to a certain 

 extent. But although, from this point of view, Her- 

 mella and Terebella are degraded by the progress of 

 development, they are elevated in other respects, and 

 on the whole gain rather than lose by the alteration. 

 In this instance metamorphosis exhibits itself in an 



* " Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste." 



