NO-MAN'S-LAND FIVE FATHOMS DOWN 



few casual strands of sea-weed, duplicated in a 

 hundred neighboring places. The thin plate of 

 nacre had been drawn with lightning swiftness 

 after the vanishing worm, and dove-tailed exactly 

 into the entrance of the narrow tunnel. We may 

 now compare it more logically with the operculum 

 of a snail or the trap-door of a spider's nest. 

 Rather I chose to think of it as some secret 

 entrance, where the cunning touch of a spring 

 rolled away a boulder and displayed the silver 

 stairway to a fairy palace. Here in the midst 

 of the East End of Polypdom, typifying in their 

 eternal monotony of meanderings the socialistic, 

 standardized equality of the coral builders, was 

 the winding palace tunnel with its silken-smooth 

 lining of mother-of-pearl, and its aristocratic 

 inhabitant of forget-me-not blue. The whole was 

 only another under-sea "Exile's Club"; a subma- 

 rine glimpse behind the looking-glass — this time 

 of the flower going back within its stem. Lest 

 this momentary flight of fancy should seem to 

 dominate our vermiceous emotions I take occa- 

 sion properly to introduce this worthy being as 

 a member of the order of Polychoete worms, 

 branch Cryptocephala, sub-order Sabelliformia, 

 family Serpulidce, and species Spirobranchus tri- 

 cornis. Its maroon and buff clusters of gills, 

 which seem also to serve as sensory organs, 

 are one of the commonest objects to be seen 

 scattered over the surface of the great coral heads. 

 Leaving my comfortable cerebrum <r>nral mound, 



45 



