226 A CLIMBING TEREBELLA. 



"but not infrequently tlie long slender tentacles of tliis 

 species, like orange-coloured animated threads, may 

 be seen twining in all directions over the exposed 

 soil. If you carefully look at the larger end of the 

 tube, you will observe that it is irregularly fringed 

 with threads of exactly the same texture as the tube 

 itself; they are, in fact, minute tubes of the same shelly 

 mosaic, though no thicker than stout sewing cotton, 

 and most admirably constructed to sheath the tentacles, 

 as they project from the main tube, and expand on 

 every side. 



But it was not as a builder that I was going to 

 introduce to you my little Terehella, that the candle 

 revealed in the vase of sea-weeds, when I examined 

 them the evening after their arrival. It was a little 

 creature, not quite an inch long in the body, and with 

 tentacles expanding about as much. Whether, finding 

 itself in new quarters, it had left its dwelling to explore 

 the neighbourhood, I know not, — possibly, by careful 

 search, I might have found the emptied tube among 

 the bases of the tufted weeds, or adhering to some of 

 the pieces of stone on which they were growing; — 

 but the naked worm was deliberately mounting the 

 smooth side of the tall glass vessel. The body hung 

 down, and the tentacles, some fifty or sixty in number, 

 were spread out on each side and above, on the surface 

 of the glass, adhering to it evidently, and alternately 

 elongated and contracted, with an impatient, wi'ithing, 

 twisting action, the result of which was to crawl, not 

 very slowly either, up the glass. 



After a time, I went into the room again, and found 

 the Terehella in another situation, and performing a 



