48 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



I often amused myself by provoking these assaults. 

 One day, for instance, I threw a large Arenicola* 

 into a pool of several feet in extent. A troop of 

 little shrimps, who were sedately enjoying them- 

 selves in the clear element, dispersed in alarm, 

 startled by the noise made by the fall of this strange 

 body, but, recovering themselves in a moment, they 

 rallied, and whilst the annelid was endeavouring to 

 bury itself in the sand, one of the youngest, and, 

 consequently, also the most venturous of the party, 

 seized the creature by the middle of its body. Em- 

 boldened by this example the others lost no time in 

 imitating it, and the poor Arenicola was pulled about 

 in all directions until a full-grown shrimp, darting 

 from behind a tuft of Corallines, dispersed his feebler 

 comrades and appropriated the booty to himself. I 

 soon saw, however, that he would be compelled to 

 divide the spoils, for at that very instant there 

 poured forth from the moving sand some score of 

 small Turbos and Buccinums, who, conscious that a 

 victim was at hand, wished to participate in the 

 feast. Without any sign of uncertainty or hesitation 

 they moved straight forward towards the Arenicola, 

 whose body was covered in the twinkling of an eye 

 with these voracious molluscs. I thought his fate 

 definitively settled, when a small shore-crab (Cancer 

 Moenas) issued from beneath a stone, put to flight 



* The common fisherman's worm (Arenicola piscatorum) is one 

 of the commonest annelids on our coast, where it is used for bait. 

 It is moreover one of the most curious in reference to its organisa- 

 tion, as M. Milne Edwards has well shown in his Memoirs on the 

 Circulation of the Annelids. 



