Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/386

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XIX. ''Descriptions of five British Species of the Genus Terebella of Linné. By the late George Montagu, Esq. F.L.S. Communicated by William Elford Leach, M.D. F.R.S. and L.S.''

The animals of this genus either prepare a sheath from the tenacious secretion of their bodies mixed with adventitious matter, or reside in prepared perforations at the bottom of the sea. The tubes which are prepared by them are in general so extremely delicate, that they are very easily destroyed, and they are then found lurking beneath stones, or forming a new habitation by connecting together sand or mud with the slimy secretion of their bodies. Some species form a tube in old shells or stones, to which they adhere by the whole length; others fix a tube perpendicularly in the sand, with two or three inches projecting above the surface. Many are gregarious, and so numerous, that we have seen the shore covered with the fragments of their tubes

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