NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 105 



turning sharply at the bottom, and ascending near and parallel to 

 the other. In no instance that came under my notice, out of 

 hundreds, was any one of the excavations driven into another. 

 Seeing this form of burrow, I question much whether they ever 

 adopt or usurp the burrow of annelids. 



There is another circumstance connected with the burrows of 

 marine worms that goes far to identify tliem with their true 

 owners ; that is, the inner wall of their burrow is generally dis- 

 coloured with an exudation from the body of the worm, which I 

 have never seen in the burrow of corophium. 



I have tried on several occasions to bring about one of those 

 famous encounters said to take place between the corophiums and 

 annelids, by placing them in a vessel together, but without ever 

 observing the least attitude of aggression, defence, or fear on either 

 side. I have tried them with the smallest worms I could find 

 (always taking them from the same mud as the corophiums), as 

 tit-bits fit to provoke the most indolent appetite, but not one of 

 the corophiums seemed to take the least notice of them. 



The truth of their migratory habits appears to be equally un- 

 certain. I meet with them on our shores in all seasons of the 

 year. Last year, about the end of January, Mr Robert Gray and 

 I met with them plentifully at Langbank, where the ice sheets lay 

 thickly packed along the line of high water; again, in Feburary, 

 we took them under the ice at Belhaven, and in the estuary of 

 the Tyne at Dunbar. 



From their reputed deep water habits in winter, we expected to 

 find them more plentiful as we approached low water; but the very 

 reverse was the case ; not one was found at low water, while they 

 were swarming near high water mark. 



From what we have seen of their habits, and the specimens of 

 their work before us, there can be little doubt of their burrowing 

 powers ; and whatever roving or warlike propensities they may have 

 at Saintonge, we have much reason to believe that they are more 

 staid and peaceful in their habits with us. 



Alteutha hopyroides (Glaus N.S.) Leipzig, 1863, The genus 



alteutha was first constituted by Dr Baird, and recorded in the 



transactions of the Berwickshire Naturalist's Club for 1845, and 



hitherto, in this country, contained only one species — AUeutlia 



depressa. The occurrence now of Alteutha hopyroides adds another 



British species to the genus — the sole addition of the last twenty 



o 



