ing the execution of the sublapsarian sentence of death, yet this evil is not unmixed with good. Though fearful and hurtful to individuals, yet it promotes the general welfare by helping to reduce within due limits the numbers of inan and beast. Besides, with regard to the lord of the creation, these things are trials that exercise his patience and other virtues, or tend to produce his reformation, and finally to secure to him an entrance into an immutable and eternal state of felicity, when that of probation is at an end, so that the gates of Death may be to him the gates of PEACE and REST.

THE animals we have just been considering form an almost insulated group, so that it seems not easy to say to what tribe they are most nearly related, but the soft Pseudo-leeches, as was observed above, especially those that have rudimental tentacles, seem to tend somewhat towards the molluscan tribes ; they exhibit considerable resemblance to the blood-suckers or true leeches, and like them have an instrument of suction, though employed, perhaps, in extracting the sap or the blood of plants, and at the same time, in many respects, as we have lately seen, they approach the polypes.

The Flukes, likewise, appear to have some characters in common with the leech,' so that a passage is open from the intestinal worms towards the Annelidans, some of which, as the earth-worm, occasionally become intestinal, and several are possessed of reproductive powers almost as great as those of the pseudo-leech, or the polype. I shall therefore next, in taking my departure from the worms, bend my steps to the animals just mentioned, which formerly bore the same general denomination.

They are called Annelidans, I suppose, because they appear to be divided into little rings, or else to have annular folds, and are soft vermiform animals, some naked, others inhabiting tubes, in some simply membranous, in others covered with agglutinated particles of sand, and in others formed, like those of the Molluscans, of shelly matter. Some have neither head, eyes, nor antennæ, while others are gifted with all these organs; instead of jointed legs, their locomotions are accomplished by means of fleshy bristle-bearing retractile protoburances or spurious legs disposed in lateral rows. Their mouth is terminal but not formed on one type; in some it is simple, orbicular or labiated; in others it consists of a proboscis often having maxillæ. They have a knotty spinal marrow, in this being superior to the Molluscans and approaching the Condy

1 See above, p. 175.

.

lopes. They have red blood, and their circulation is by arteries and veins, but they have no special organ for the maintenance of the systole and diastole, their Creator not having given them a heart, but where the veins and the arteries meet, there is an enlargement, and the systole and diastole is more visible, as Cuvier remarks, than in the rest of the system, these enlargements therefore seem to represent a heart.

Savigny, in the third part of his Systême des Animaux sans Vertèbres divides them into five Orders, of which he gives only the characters of the four first, intending to publish, in a supplement, his account of the fifth; these Orders he arranges in two Divisions-the first including those that have bristles for locomotion, and the second those that have them not.

1. His first Order he denominates Nereideans,' and characterizes them as having legs provided with retractile subulate bristles, without claws; a distinct head with eyes and antennæ; a proboscis that can be protruded, generally armed with maxillæ.

2. The second he names Serpuleans, these add to the legs of the former retractile bristles, with claws; they have no head furnished with eyes and antennæ, and no proboscis.2

3. The third he names Lumbricinans; these have no projecting legs; but are furnished with bristles seldom retractile: they have no head with eyes and attennæ, and no maxillæ.

4. His fourth Order he names Hirudineans. They have a prehensile cavity, or sucker, at each extremity, and eyes.3

5. In his fifth Order he intends to comprehend those Annelidans that have neither bristles nor prehensile cavities, but his account of this has not been published.

He begins with the most perfect of the Annelidans, but viewing them in connexion with the worms I must reverse the order, and instead of descending ascend, which will bring me ultimately into connexion with the more distinctly jointed animals the Condylopes.

1. The Order of Hirudineans includes animals that are of the first importance, as well as some that are fearfully anoying, to mankind. The common leech' has long been so much in request with medical men, on account of the facility with which it can be applied to any part of the body where bleeding is required, that they are now become scarce in our own waters, and consequently dear, so that large numbers are im ported from the Continent.

1 Nereidea.

2 Serpulex. 3 Lumbricinæ and Hirudinea 4 Hirudo medicinalis, L. (Sanguisuga, Sav.)

Providence has gifted these animals with a sucker on the underside at each extremity of their body, by which their loco, motions are performed, and by means of the anterior one they fix themselves to any animal that comes in their way. We see therefore in them, though on a larger scale, some approximation to the locomotive and prehensile organs of some of the Cephalopods, and prior to them, of the Stelleridans and Echinidans,' which likewise move and fix themselves by suckers. The mouth is situated in the cavity of the oral sucker, it is triangular and armed with three sharp teeth disposed longitudinally in a triangle, two being lateral and one intermediate, and higher up. These teeth are sharp enough to pierce not only the human skin, but even the hide of an ox, and have their edge armed with two rows of very minute teeth; at the bottom of the mouth is the organ of suction which imbibes the blood flowing from the wound made by the teeth. These animals inhabit fresh waters, in which they swim like eels with a vermicular motion. In moving on a solid body, they first fix themselves by their anal sucker, which is larger than the oral, and then by means of their annular structure, extend themselves forwards, when they fix their mouth, detach their anal sucker, and thus fixing themselves alternately by each proceed with considerable rapidity. They are hermaphrodites, and bring forth their young alive. When in their native waters they suck any animal that comes in their way, even those with white blood, as the larvæ of insects, worms and the like. Herodotus relates that the crocodile, in consequence of its frequenting the water so much, has the inside of its mouth in fested by leeches, which a little bird, named the trochilus, enters and devours, without receiving any injury from the monster. Geoffroy St. Hilaire asserts that no leeches are found in the Nile, and therefore supposes the Bdelle of the father of history were not leeches, but mosquitoes. But Savigny has described a leech under the name of Bdella nilotica, which he regards as synonymous with the leech of Herodotus. Bosc mentions one which was found in the stagnant waters in Egypt, when not inflated as small as a horse-hair, which very much annoyed the French soldiers, attacking them in nearly the same way; when they drank, fastening itself to their throat, and occasioning hemorrhages and other serious accidents.

2

Mr. Madox, in his Excursions in the Holy Land, Egypt, &c., states that he had frequently seen, on the banks of the Nile, a bird about the size of a dove, or rather larger, of handsome

1 See above, p. 164, 109, 110.

2 PLATE VIII. FIG. 3.

་

plumage, and making a twittering noise when on the wing It had a peculiar motion of the head, as if nodding to some one near it, at the same time turning itself to the right and left, and making its congé twice or thrice before its departure. This bird, he was told, was called Sucksaque, and that tradition had assigned to it the habit of entering the mouth of the crocodile, when basking in the sun, on a sand bank, for the purpose of picking what might be adhering to its teeth: which being done, upon a hint from the bird, the reptile opens his mouth and permits it to fly away.'

This seems evidently the Trochilus of Herodotus, above al luded to, as clearing the mouth of the crocodile from the leeches. Aristotle, in more than one place of his History of Animals, mentions such a bird, and a similar tradition concerning it, with that of Mr. Madox. "The Trochilus flying into the yawning mouth of the crocodile cleanses his teeth, and thus is provided with food. The latter, senisble of the benefit, suffers it to depart uninjured." In another place, he seems to speak of it as an aquatic bird, yet afterwards he describes it as frequenting shrubberies and subterranean places. Whether this animal really attends thus upon the crocodile has not been ascertained, but it would be singular that such a tradition should have maintained its ground so long without any foundation.

As a farther proof that the Bdella of the father of history is a true leech, and not a mosquito,-as M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, from the meaning of its primitive, would interpret the word,it may be observed that Aristotle compares the Bdella to an earth-worm, and describes its peculiar motion; and in Hesychius it is said to be a kind of Scolex or worm; Theocritus also alludes to its blood-sucking propensities."

That leeches infest the aquatic Saurians is farther evident from a letter received by Mr. R. Taylor, and very kindly com municated by him to me, from a friend at Calcutta, Mr. W. C. Hurry, who having observed that the fauces of the gigantic crane were generally very full of leeches, determined to examine the crocodile; and upon a large alligator he found a small red species, of which he sent specimens. A friend of mine, Mr. Martin, of Islington, observed also that the alligators