worms. 263 



body, a row of wartlike feet, from each of which project 

 two bundles of spines of exquisite structure. The bundles, 

 expanding on all sides, resemble so many sheaves of 

 wheat ; or you may more appropriately fancy you behold 

 the armoury of some belligerent sea-fairy, with stacks of 

 arms enough to accoutre a numerous host. But if you 

 look closely at the weapons themselves, they rather re- 

 semble those which we are accustomed to wonder at in 

 missionary museums, — the arms of some ingenious but 

 barbarous people from the South Sea Islands, — than such 

 as are used in civilised warfare. Here are long lances, 

 made like scythe-blades, set on a staff, with a hook at the 

 tip, as if to capture the fleeing foe and bring him within 

 reach of the blade. Among them are others of similar 

 shape, but with the edge cut into delicate slanting notches, 

 which run along the sides of the blade like those on the 

 edge of our reaping-hooks. These are chiefly the weapons 

 of the lower bundle ; those of the upper are still more im- 

 posing. The outmost are short curved clubs, armed with 

 a row of shark's teeth to make them more fatal ; these 

 surround a cluster of spears, the long heads of which are 

 furnished with a double row of the same appendages, and 

 lengthened scimitars, the curved edges of which are cut 

 into teeth like a saw. Though a stranger nri^ht think I 

 had drawn copiously on my fancy for this description, I 

 am sure, with your eye upon what is on the stage of the 

 microscope at this moment, you will acknowledge that the 

 resemblances are not at all forced or unnatural. To add 

 to the effect, imagine that all these weapons are forged 

 out of the clearest glass instead of steel ; that the larger 

 bundles may contain about fifty, and the smaller half as 

 many, each ; that there are four bundles on every seg- 

 ment, and that the body is composed of twenty-five such 

 segments ; and you will have a tolerable idea of the 

 garniture and armature of this little Worm, that grubs 

 about in the mud at low-water mark. 



