a tributary of the
Rhone. (W. A. B. C.)

ANNELIDA, a name derived from J.B.P. Lamarck's term _Annelides_, now
used to denote a major phylum or division of coelomate invertebrate
animals. Annelids are segmented worms, and differ from the Arthropoda
(q.v.), which they closely resemble in many respects, by the possession
of a portion of the coelom traversed by the alimentary canal. In the
latter respect, and in the fact that they frequently develop by a
metamorphosis, they approach the Mollusca (q.v.), but they differ from
that group notably in the occurrence of metameric segmentation affecting
many of the systems of organs. The body-wall is highly muscular and,
except in a few probably specialized cases, possesses chitinous spines,
the setae, which are secreted by the ectoderm and are embedded in pits
of the skin. They possess a modified anterior end, frequently with
special sense organs, forming a head, a segmented nervous system,
consisting of a pair of anterior, dorsally-placed ganglia, a ring
surrounding the alimentary canal, and a double ventral ganglionated
chain, a definite vascular system, an excretory system consisting of
nephridia, and paired generative organs formed from the coelomic
epithelium. They are divided as follows: (1) Haplodrili (q.v.) or
Archiannelida; (2) Chaetopoda (q.v.); (3) Myzostomida (q.v.), probably
degenerate Polychaeta; (4) Hirudinea (see CHAETOPODA and LEECH); (5)
Echiuroidea (q.v.). (P. C. M.)

ANNET, PETER (1693-1769), English deist, is said to have been born at
Liverpool. A schoolmaster by profession, he became prominent owing to
his attacks on orthodox theologians, and his membership of a
semi-theological debating society, the Robin Hood Society, which met at
the "Robin Hood and Little John" in Butcher Row. To him has been
attributed a work called _A History of the Man after God's own Heart_
(1761), intended to show that George II. was insulted by a current
comparison with David. The book is said to have inspired Voltaire's
_Saul_. It is also attributed to one John Noorthouck (Noorthook). In
1763 he was condemned for blasphemous libel in his paper called the
_Free Enquirer_ (nine numbers only). After his release he kept a small
school in Lambeth, one of his pupils being James Stephen (1758-1832),
who became master in Chancery. Annet died on the 18th of January 1769.
He stands between the earlier philosophic deists and the later
propagandists of Paine's school, an