ORDER ABRANCHIA, 
29 
and some whitish glands towards the middle of the body, 
which appear to serve the purposes of generation. It is cer- 
tain that they are hermaphrodites; but it may be possible 
that their approximation serves only to excite them mutually 
to self-fecundation. According to Mr. Montague, the eggs 
descend between the intestine and the external envelope, as 
far as around the rectum, where they disclose. The young 
ones come out alive through the anus. M. L. Dufour says, 
on the contrary, that they form eggs analogous to those of the 
Hirudines. The nervous cord is only a series of an infinity 
of small ganglia, crowded one against the other. 
M. Savigny subdivides them again: his Enterion have 
under each ring four pairs of little bristles, eight in all. 
Every body knows the common earth-worm , lumbricus 
terrestris , L., with a reddish body, attaining nearly a foot in 
length, with one hundred and twenty rings, and more. The 
enlargement is towards the anterior third of the body ; under 
the sixteenth ring are two pores, the use of which is un- 
known. 
This animal pierces the earth in all directions, and swallows 
much of it; it also eats roots, ligneous fibres, animal sub- 
stances, &c. In the month of June it issues from the earth at 
night, for the purposes of generation. 
What I have here mentioned is common to many species, 
which M. Savigny was the first to distinguish : he has charac- 
terized twenty of them. See my analysis of the labours of the 
Academy of Sciences, 1821. M. Duges distinguishes six, 
but he does not refer them exactly to those of M. Savigny. 
N. B. Muller and Fabricius speak of lumbrici, with two 
setae to each ring, of which M. Savigny proposes to form his 
genus Clitellio, Lumb. minutus , Fab., Faun. Grcenl. f. 4., 
and of lumbrici with four or six setae ; but their descriptions, 
which are old, have need of being confirmed and completed, 
before we can classify their species. 
