I find among my notes a record of a specimen of _Phyllodoce_, which, if
not identical with this, was closely allied to it, in which I observed
the continuance of vitality after the severance of the creature into
parts. It was sent to me from Torquay, when I lived near London. When
it arrived I found that about an inch and a quarter of the anterior
extremity was detached from the remainder, which measured about four
inches. The former was motionless, contracted, and seemed lifeless;
the latter moved freely. I put both into an old aquarium. The long
posterior portion glided about among the stones for two days, exactly
like a living healthy animal; the anterior part remained motionless and
contracted until the third day, when I saw it also gliding over the
stones in a most lively manner, rearing its head, and feeling about
in the manner of a caterpillar. Eight days after its arrival, the
head portion was still active and apparently healthy, but the hinder
part had become motionless and was evidently dead. I find no further
record of the case, and probably the anterior part ultimately died
without reproduction; but the length of the period of its survival in
apparent vigour, renders it not improbable that in the open sea, under
the influence of abundant oxygen, and suitable food, the wanting parts
might have been renewed to the fore-part, if not to both.
To return to my more recent captive, however. I killed it for cabinet
preservation by putting it into fresh water, where it presently died,
with the noticeable circumstance that it threw out mucus in such
profusion that the whole body was enveloped in a mass, much thicker
than itself, of clear jelly, excessively tough and tenacious.
The most common members of the class _Annelida_, that we meet with in
these situations, are different species of the genus _Nereis_, which
are for the most part worms of considerable size, usually brown or
green, with a changeable metallic lustre above, and brilliantly pearly
beneath. They have a distinct head, of a squarish form, terminating in
two swollen fleshy knob-like antennæ, and furnished with four pairs of
thread-like tentacular cirri, which project on each side like a cat’s
whiskers. The body is plump, though somewhat flattened, and bears
on each side a row of fleshy foot-warts, which are pierced for the
extrusion of the curious bristles that are so characteristic of these
marine worms.