10 
CLASS ANNELIDA. 
side of its mouth is a plume of gills in the form of a fan, usually 
tinted with lively colours. At the base of each plume is a fleshy 
filament, one of which, either on the right side, or the left, 
indifferently, is always elongated, or dilated at its extremity, 
into a disc, variously configurated, which serves as an oper- 
culum, and closes the aperture of the tube, when the animal 
has retired into it* * * § . 
The common species Serpula contortuplicata f, Ell. 
Corall. xxxviii. 2., has round tubes twisted, and three lines 
in diameter. Its operculum is funnel-shaped, and its gills 
often of a fine red, or varied with yellow, or violet. It speedily 
covers with its tubes, vases, and other objects, thrown into 
the sea. 
We have, on our coasts, a smaller species, with a claviform 
operculum, armed with two or three small points. (< Serp . ver- 
micularis , Gm.) Mull. Zool. Dan. Ixxxvi. 7. 9. &c. The 
gills are sometimes blue. Nothing is more agreeable to see 
than a group of these serpulse, when they are well expanded. 
In others, the operculum is flat, and bristled with more 
numerous points J. 
There is one in the Antilles ( Serpula gigantea , Pall. 
Miscell. x. 2. 10.) which sojourns among the madrepores, 
and whose tube is often surrounded by their masses. Its gills 
are spirally rolled when they re-enter the tube, and its oper- 
culum is armed with two small, branching horns, like the 
antlers of a deer §. 
* The most common Serpula having this disc in the form of a funnel, 
naturalists have taken it for a proboscis, but it is not pierced, and the other 
species have it more or less claviform. 
t It is the same animal as the Amphitrite penicillus, Gm. or Proboscidea, 
Brug. Probosci-plectanas , Fab. Column. Aquat., c. xi. p. 22. 
I These are the Galeolaria, Lam. An operculum is visible on them, 
Berl., Schr. IX. iii. 6. 
§ The same as Terebella bicornis, Abildg., Berl., Schr., IX. iii. 4. Seb. 
