EEPOET ON THE ANNELIDA. 
55 
characterised bv a raouth with the proboscis devoid of tentacles ; head with two distinct 
eyes, antennse complete, the middle very small and conical, the intermediate similar and 
a little longer, the exterior large. Feet of two sej^arate divisions, the dorsal with two 
unequal fasciculi of bristles inclined backward, the ventral with a single bundle of forked 
bristles. The dorsal and ventral cirri slender, cylindrical, terminated by a little cylin- 
drical process enlarged at the tip. The dorsal cirri are inserted behind the base of the 
inferior fascicle of dorsal bristles. The first pair of feet furnished with bristles ; and the 
last almost like the others. The branchise indistinct, ceasing to appear alternately on each 
segment after the twenty- fifth pair of feet. No elytra. Head depressed, a little raised 
behind the antennae. Body obloug, depressed, composed of a number of segments. His 
only species (the Nereis palmifera of the Cuvierian collection) had been collected at the 
Isle of France by M. Mathieu. Savigny in his original description noticed both kinds 
of dorsal bristles, and as his specimen had thirty feet, he hazarded the opinion that if 
scales had been developed they would have been fourteen in number. His countrymen, 
Audouin and Milne-Ed wards, ^ in 1834 made Palmyra the third tribe of i\\eiv Aphro- 
disiens, characterised by the absence of elytra [Aphrodisiens nus). Nothing was added 
to Savigny’s description save a few indifferent figures, some of which afterwards appeared 
in theRegne Animal. Grube^in 1855 added another species to the family. It had four 
eyes and very different ventral bristles. Moreover, in his recent Annulata Semperiana,'^ 
he revises the description of the family, and gives a notice of Savigny’s species [Palmyra 
aurifera). No scales are stated to exist. Clapar^de ^ in 1862 also referred generally 
to the group in his description of two new forms (very different from the foregoing) 
from the Mediterranean; and again in 1868 ® he alludes to the subject in regard to 
Chrysopetalum in which scales are likewise absent. Schmarda® gives Kinberg’s defini- 
tion of the family, viz., elytra absent, palese on every segment ; tubercles and dorsal cirri 
alternate. The genera, Paleanotus and Bliawania, described are likewise quite different 
from Palmyra. Ehlers, in his comprehensive general remarks on the literature of the 
subject at the end of his description of Chrysopetalum fragile'^ gives no information on 
this important subject of the scales, which he believes do not exist. De Quatrefages,® 
again, in his account of the genus Palmyra, deprives it of eyes as well as scales, and 
erroneously gives it three tentacular cirri instead of two. 
The original specimen (of Palmyra aurifera) described by Savigny seems to have 
been the only one examined, up to the date of Grube’s Annulata QUrstediana, and from 
the close similarity of Palmyra in regard to the structure of the head, the structure of 
. the feet, the form of the bristles, the pinnate condition of the alimentary canal, and other 
points, it is hardly in accordance with what is known in allied forms that scales should 
1 Hist, nat des Annel., p. 110, pi. iia. figs. 1-6. ^ Annulata CErstediana, p. 25. 
^ Annel. Fauna d. Philippinen, p. 12. ^ Glanures Zootomiques, &c., p. 123. 
® Ann41. Chetop., p. 107. ® Neue wirbell. Tliieie, I. ii. p. 162. 
^ Die Borstenwiirmer, i. pp. 88-92. ® Anneles, i. p. 292. 
