worms with which they come into contact, so that in a 
few hours, especially on a hot day, the whole of the worms 
become soft and flabby, and soon die. 
No attempts have been made, so far as the writer is 
aware, to preserve lugworms for subsequent use as bait. 
It seems doubtful, judging from the experiments which 
have been made on the preservation, by means of chemical 
substances such as boracic acid, of more hardy animals for 
use as bait, whether such experiments on Arenicola would 
be attended with any great success. Cold storage would 
probably be more successful than chemical means of pre- 
servation in the case of Arenzcola. Undoubtedly the best 
plan is to use the worms as soon as possible after they are 
dug, but during the brief interval between digging and 
using them they should be placed in a moderate amount 
of sand containing just enough moisture to make it 
ccherent, and kept cool. 
Lugworms are abundant on most of our sandy 
beaches. In some places, however, e.g., near Aberdeen, 
the force of the sea is so great that the worms cannot live 
in the constantly shifting sands. In other places, 
especially where organic matter is plentiful, e.g., near 
some sewage outfalls, they may be found in large numbers 
and of good size. The organic matter may be almost 
entirely absent from the surface layer of sand, so that the 
beach may have the usual yellow colour, but it may be 
present in such quantities in the subjacent layer as to 
produce in the latter a dark-grey or even almost black 
colour. In this case the castings brought to the surface 
by the worms are usually of the same dark colour, and are 
conspicuous on the yellow beach. In thus passing through 
their bodies the sand laden with organic matter, im 
removing part of this during digestion and in discharging 
the partially cleansed sand on the surface of the beach, 
