NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 363 



are covered with such a maze of bristles, antennae, legs, odd 

 fibers and cirri, all vibrating at high speed, that they possess 

 something of the appearance that I imagine a bolt of electricity 

 would have if suddenly and unexplainably endowed with life 

 and tissues. The comparison of sea worms to electric arcs is 

 not as farfetched as it might seem, for their activity is stupen- 

 dous. Whatever their imaginary amperage may be, their visi- 

 ble voltage is high. The worms which were darting about my 

 light were becoming frantic in their excitement. Looping, un- 

 dulating, vibrating, shaking and shivering, they whirled about 

 the lens in a vermiform frenzy. My nerves, already slightly on 

 edge, revolted when a long body slithered along the curve of 

 my forearm and burst into the light leaving my flesh tingling 

 from the contact. It was a brilliant worm of light scarlet 

 fronted with a yellowish head, and it was being rowed along 

 with several scores of triangular green oars composed of fibrous 

 bristles. From its fantastic head covered with whisker-like blue 

 cirri to its pointed, feathery tail it was about seven inches long. 

 In the rays of the flash it shimmered and scintillated with 

 iridescent light. 



I had barely recovered from the shock of its bristly touch 

 when it was joined by two others which dashed over to the 

 first and began looping over and over its body. Round and 

 round they went in a blur of activity. They were joined by 

 others until the beam of the lamp was filled with a swirling 

 mixture of revolving bodies. In between the larger worms 

 fifteen or twenty smaller individuals of several species darted 

 back and forth on straight paths. These gave the moving de- 

 sign an additional pattern of horizontal streaks, flashing lines 

 of green and pink. Hastily I tried to remember their charac- 

 teristics in the hope that I might identify them later, but gave 

 it up as impossible. The larger worms I am confident were 

 some type of Neirids, but the indentification of sea worms is 



