THE WORMS 65 
and thus the little worm develops, as it were, within its own larva, 
which shrivels and is cast off. 
The Pink Ribbon-Worm, (Mechkelia rosea), is smaller than M. 
ingens, never being more than about ten inches long and one-quar- 
ter of an inch wide. It has a thread-like proboscis which can be 


Fig. 34; Upper. RIBBON-WORM. 
Lower. OPAL-WORM. 
shot out with remarkable rapidity, and is fully ten inches long. This 
worm is dull red or flesh colored, and lives in sand near low water 
mark. The sand adheres tenaciously to the slime-covered body of 
the worm. 
The Sea Mouse, (Aphrodite aculeata, Fig. 55). This remarka- 
ble worm is oval in shape, and about three inches long and one and 
one-half wide. The skin is dull brown but the sides are covered 
with numerous hair-like bristles, many of 
which glisten with brilliant green, red and 
yellow iridescence. The head bears a pair of 
tapering feelers, and there are about forty 
pairs of legs provided with short, stiff, brown- 
colored bristles, which extend outward at the 
edges of the flat lower surface. This worm 
lives in mud below tide level, and is found 
from Long Island northward, and is abundant 

on the northern coasts of Kurope. 
The Clam Worms, (Nereis, ig. 56), are 
very common in muddy beaches where they 
; Fig. 35; SEA-MOUSE. 
live between tide levels in burrows lined with 
mucous. They are segmented, or ringed, each ring of the body 
bearing a pair of flapper-like gill-feet. The head segment, however, 
is more complex, for it bears ten feelers, two fleshy ‘“‘palps,” and 
