ON ANNELIDA. 
51 
come better acquainted with them : are the annelida to be 
raised to this rank because they possess a nutritive fluid of a 
red colour, or because they have what, after all, may be con- 
sidered but as the semblance of a circulation ? 
In reply to all this we may briefly say that, anatomically 
and physiologically considered (and, after all, considerations of 
this kind form the proper basis for zoological classification), the 
annelida are more complicated in their organization than the 
subsequent classes ; they form a more obvious link with the 
classes immediately preceding, and (be it remembered) that 
the objection against their being placed before the insects, if 
it prove any thing, proves too much, for the same objection is 
equally strong against the allocation of the mollusca in the 
animal kingdom. But the fact is, that this objection, like 
others of the same kind, is grounded upon the very untenable 
position, that the works of nature proceed in a linear series, 
a position which every true naturalist knows to be equally 
contradictory to fact and reason. As for the assertion relative 
to a circulating system, it will not bear examination. Analogy 
would lead us to conclude that in every organized being cir- 
culation must exist, and we arc informed that its existence in 
insects has of late been demonstrated by an English natural- 
ist *. If so, we cannot have any doubt concerning it in the 
annelida. 
M. de Lamarck followed the example of Baron Cuvier, and 
placed this class between the cirropoda and the Crustacea. 
M. Dumeril, in his analytical Zoology, has not thought 
proper to follow the views of MM. Cuvier and Lamarck. He 
admits, however, with them, that the organization of the anne- 
lida is more complicated than that of the insects, and that, 
according to the natural scale of beings, they ought imme- 
* J. Bowerbank, Esq. 
