126 
THE PRINCIPLES OE BIOLOGY. 
18. Asplanchnci eupoda. Body globose, with a stout foot, 
retractile at will: rami of incus long, each armed on its 
inner edge with four widely - severed teeth. Length, 
moderately extended, in., width T i-g in. Lacustrine. 
The most remarkable feature is the foot, which is, pro¬ 
portionally, much larger than in A. myrmeleo. The pincer- 
like rami are those of a normal Asplanchnci, having a close 
resemblance to those of A. priodonta , save that their inner 
edges are not cut into saw-teetli, bat beset with three distant 
spinous teeth, while each curved point is double. I have 
examined eight or ten examples, all from the canal, Small- 
heath, Birmingam. (Fig. 18.) 
THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY.* 
BY HERBERT SPENCER. 
Exposition of Part IV., Chapter XV., and Appendix B. 
The Vertebrate Skeleton. 
BY F. J. CULLIS, F.G.S. 
[ABSTRACT.] 
When a little maiden, who is learning to sew, pricks a 
finger with her needle, so that just one drop of blood oozes 
out, she knows not that in that shed blood there are 
millions of living organisms doomed to a premature death, 
through so small an accident. Still less does she know that 
her dainty little body is a vast aggregate of beings equivalent 
to these, and that they are grouped, as it were, in families, 
and societies, and nations, all of which are compacted into 
the marvellous kingdom, of which she is the queen. But this 
multiplex nature alike of every human form and of every 
tree is fast becoming part of that common knowledge at 
which the multitude ceases to wonder. 
Though not so much a matter of popular knowledge, it is 
very well known to the naturalist, that in many organisms 
there is not only a compounding of cells into tissues, and of 
tissues into organs, and an integration of these into the one 
greater and more manifest individual; but there is also a more 
or less perfect joining of several or many such semi-indepen¬ 
dent individuals into one larger whole. The study of the 
compound coelenterates, of worms, or crustaceans, shows that 
* Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical Society, Socio¬ 
logical Section, April 1st, 1886. 
