Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/302

Rh posterior extremity, and its tendency to irregular constriction, combine with the absence of suckers, and the deterioration of the oral tentacles to mark its affinity with the Sipunculidœ, in which family I think it should be placed. I know the characters of the genus Chirodota of Eschscholtz, only from their citation in Professor Forbes' "Star-fishes," but cannot help thinking with Montagu that our Torquay specimens come very close to Müller's Holothuria inhærens, judging from the figure and Latin diagnosis of the latter, for unfortunately I cannot read the Danish language. The only difference I notice is in the form of the tentacles, Müller's species having each sixteen terminal digitations, while ours has but four.

Many of the Marine Worms, as I have before said, are very elegant creatures, and not a few present us with great variety and brilliance of colours. Pre-eminent among them are the Leaf-worms, according to the verdict of most who have studied this Class of beings, from Fabricius downward, who styled them Virgines pulcherrimæ inter Nereides." In the little shallow hollows that are to be found on the surface of the rocks covered at high tide, green with the puckered leaves of the lettuce-like Ulva, and affording a happy home to multitudes of Purples, Periwinks, Tops and Mussels, we may often see, gliding in and out, the worms of this genus, which the indefatigable Savigny named after the sea-nymph Phyllodoce;—