Mr. P. H. Gosse on new or little^known Marine Animals. 311^!; 



series of minute, close-set, transverse bristles, which impart top 

 these organs under the microscope some resemblance to the lipa j 

 of a Cowry shell. I could detect no cilia on these ear-like 

 organs, but the tentacles and the fringing cirri of the mouth are 

 richly ciliated. 



The ultimate segment is furnished with a pair of slender 

 diverging fleshy filaments (fig. 11). 



The colours of this worm are beautiful. The back is purplish- 

 red, passing into lilac, with a fine pearly gloss, the whole thickly 

 studded with white specks. The head, the mouth-fringe, and ! 

 the whole under-parts are white. The tentacles are translucent 

 yellow-olive, with a black core at the base, gradually lost, th^ 

 surface marked with transverse lines and dashes of opake white. 

 The first pencil of bristles (as has been said above) is golden. 



The animal inhabits a tube about twice its own length and 

 thickness ; but its diameter appears greater than it is, from its 

 manner of construction. It is made of small fragments of shell, 

 minute bits of slate, &c., affixed, not by their surfaces, but edge- 

 wise, so that the whole presents a peculiarly rugged bristling 

 appearance, yet not devoid of neatness. Slender filaments of 

 sea-weed, coralline, &c. project here and there ; — and while a 

 large flat stone ballasts the posterior extremity, the anterior isj 

 protected by a small limpet shell, which has been seized entire, y 

 and most ingeniously fastened so as to form a dome over the 

 animal's head when partly protruded (fig. 8). Somewhat similar 

 porticoes I have seen in the tubes of Caddis worms, which in- 

 deed this structure closely resembles; and the same object is, 

 attained by a large species of Sabellaria common on the Devon- 1 

 shire coast, which constructs a flat portico of the common sub-;^ 

 stance of the tube. In all cases it is a beautiful instance of ani- 

 mal providence, as well as architecture. 



I did not, however, find that, with all this attention to com- 

 fort, the worm was particular as to which end of his dwelling he 

 made his sally-port ; for after having used the porticoed extre- 

 mity awhile, which of course was the front door, he suddenly 

 appeared (having turned himself meanwhile in some mysterious 

 manner) at the back-door, which thenceforth he persisted in 

 using all the while I had him. He was not at all shy ; he would j 

 retreat, indeed, if touched, but was presently out again. His 

 habit was to protrude a fourth, or even half of his body from the 

 tube, and remain curling and twining the mouth-fringe of cirri, ^ 

 every instant twitching one or other of the tentacles, and as it- 

 were striking the water with thenar as. ^jCfrab does with its inner j 

 antennse. nJsM ; .:/, 



The specimen was taken at Ilfracombe, under a stone at^^^yfj^ 

 water, in August ; and lived some days in captivity. ?- 



