Class 4: Worms

These are suboviparous animals:

• with soft elongated bodies, without a head, eyes, limbs, or bunches of setae
• without circulation and with a complete intestinal canal (one with two openings).
  • Mouth made up of one or several suckers.

Observations

The general form of worms is very different from that of the radiates. Their mouths, always a sucker, has no similarity to those of the polyps, which display only an aperture accompanied by radiating tentacles or rotatory organs.

Worms have, in general, an elongated body, very slightly contractile, although very soft, and their intestinal canal is not limited to a single opening.

In the fistulid radiates, nature began to abandon the radiating form of the parts and to give animal bodies an elongated shape, the only one which might lead to the goal which nature set for herself.

Once nature created the worms, she is going to tend from that point on to establish the pattern of the paired symmetry of parts, which she could not attain except by an articulated design. But in the class of worms, which is ambiguous to some extent, she has only sketched out a few traits.

Table of Worms

First Order: Cylindrical Worms

Dragoneau Fiaria Proboscidea Crino Ascaris Fissula Trichocephaus

Cucullanus Strongyius Scolex Caryophyllacus Tentacularia Echinorhyncus

Second Order: Bladder Worms

Bicorn Hydatis

Third Order: Flat Worms

Taenia Linguatula

Lingula Fasciola

Third Stage of Organic Structure

Nerves ending in a longitudinal ganglionic chord; respiration by aerated trachaea; no circulation (or imperfect).