FIGURE 2.245. A young Enteropneust (Balanaglossus). (From Alexander Agassiz.) r acorn-shaped snout, h neck, k gill-clefts and gill-arches of the fore-gut, in long rows on each side, d digestive hind-gut, filling the greater part of the body-cavity, v intestinal vein or ventral vessel, lying between the parallel folds of the skin, a anus. Figure 2.246. Transverse section of the branchial gut. A of Balanoglossus, B of Ascidia. r branchial gut, n pharyngeal groove, asterisk ventral folds between the two. Diagrammatic illustration from Gegenbaur, to show the relation of the dorsal branchial-gut cavity (r) to the pharyngeal or hypobranchial groove (n).) The Nemertina were formerly classed with the much less advanced Turbellaria. But they differ essentially from them in having an anus and blood-vessels, and several other marks of higher organisation. They have generally long and narrow bodies, like a more or less flattened cord; there are, besides several small species, giant-forms with a width of 1/5 to 2/5 inch and a length of several yards (even ten to fifteen). Most of them live in the sea, but some in fresh water and moist earth. In their internal structure they approach the Turbellaria on the one hand and the higher Vermalia (especially the Enteropneusta) on the other. They have a good deal of interest as the lowest and oldest of all animals with blood. In them we find blood-vessels for the first time, distributing real blood through the body. The blood is red, and the red colouring-matter is haemoglobin, connected with elliptic discoid blood-cells, as in the Vertebrates. Most of them have two or three parallel blood-canals, which run the whole length of the body, and are connected in front and behind by loops, and often by a number of ring-shaped pieces. The chief of these primitive blood-vessels is the one that lies above the gut in the middle line of the back (Figure 2.244 r); it may be compared to either the dorsal vessel of the Articulates or the aorta of the Vertebrates. To the right and left are the two serpentine lateral vessels (Figure 2.244 l). After the Nemertina, I take (as distant relatives) the Enteropneusta; they may be classed together with them as Frontonia or Rhyncocoela (snout-worms). There is now only one genus of this class, with several species (Balanoglossus); but it is very remarkable, and may be regarded as the last survivor of an ancient and long-extinct class of Vermalia. They are related, on the one hand, to the Nemertina and their immediate ancestors, the Platodes, and to the lowest and oldest forms of the Chordonia on the other.