NE'MEA, anciently the name of a deep and well-watered valley of Argolis, in the Peloponnesus, between Cleonm and Phlius. It lies u. and s., and is from 2 to 3 In. long, and more than half a mile broad. It possessed a sacred grove, with a magnificent tem ple of Zeus, and was celebrated for the games called the Nemean genies, which took place four times in two olympiads in an adjacent woody valley. This was one of the great national festivals of the Greeks, and, according to one legend, was founded by the seven princes who were combined against Thebes: according to another, by Hercules after his victory over the Nemean lion. The games consisted partly of exercises of bodily skill and strength—such as chariot-racing, quoit-throwing, wrestling, running in armor, horse racing, boxing, throwing the spear, and archery, and partly of musical and poetical com petitions. The prize was originally a crown of olive twigs, afterwards of parsley. We have eleven odes by Pindar in honor of victors in the Nemean games.
a genus of marine annelida, the type of a family, nemerticks, remarkable for the prodigious length which some of the species attain, which, in their most extended state, is 30 or 40 feet. But the animal which stretches itself out to this iength, is capable
of suddenly contracting itself to 3 or 4 feet. The structure is similar to that of leeches, but there is no sucker. These annelids feed upon molluscs by sucking them out of their shells. They generally lurk in the Mud or sand of the sea-coast, and are sometimes drawn up with the nets or lines of fishermen. They twine themselves into knots and coils, apparently inextricable, but without any real entanglement. The life history of the nemertidce is curious. The embryo has at first a ciliated, non-contractile, oval body; from which there issues a small actively contractile worm, leaving behind it the oval skin, and this worm grows to the size already mentioned. The larval state, however, exhibits a cleft with raised edges, which becomes the mouth of the perfect animal.