A 
WORMS, MOSS-POLYPS, SPONGES, ETC. 
Worms are in a general way not very attrac- 
tive animals, yet they present much that is at the 
same time interesting and beautiful. This is par- 
ticularly the case with the marine forms, whose 
burrows can be traced almost everywhere over the 
expanse of tidal flats which the retreating waters 
leave behind them. At these times the animals 
remain well within their habitations, from which 
they can be readily extracted through the use of 
a long-bladed garden-trowel. The many-footed 
Nereis, whose superb iridescence rivals in metal- 
lic effect the lustre of the tropical beetles, is of a 
type of beauty that is distinctively its own; and the 
same may be said of the medusa-like Cirratulus (PI. 
8, Fig. 6), of the green Euchone, or of the gordian 
Amphitrite (Plate 8, Fig. 1), with its crown of 
flesh-colored tentacles and blood-red gills. Some 
of these-forms, like the Serpule, inhabit more or 
less permanently calcareous tubes of their own se- 
cretion; others, by exudation of a binding cement, 
construct their tubes of agglutinated sand-parti- 
cles. Both of these types are known as tubico- 
lous worms. To a third group, represented by the 
beautiful Nereis (Pl. 8, Fig. 9) and its allies (Lum- 
briconereis, Pl. 8, Fig. 3, and the brush-like Eunice), 
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