2 W. BLAXLAND BENHAM. 
of my study, and for his advice and kinduess in aid of my work 
there. 
Magelona lives in the sand at and below ordinary low-water 
mark, and the lower the tide the more abundant are the worms. 
My sojourn at St. Andrews was timed so as to cover par- 
ticularly low tides occurring between August 30th and Septem- 
ber 4th. I found the worms limited to a comparatively small 
area on the sands near the harbour, close to the Laboratory, 
though they occur more sparingly over a larger area. The 
work involved in their capture is rather heavy, as they occur 
at a depth from eight to sixteen inches below the surface of the 
sand. I was fortunately able to obtain the help of the laboratory 
attendant, A. W. Brown, who accompanied me in my search. 
The process was as follows:—Having selected a spot which he 
believed from experience to be likely, Brown dug as deeply into 
the sand as possible. As he raised the spade-load the sand na- 
turally broke across, and if Magelona was present the worms 
would be seen stretching across the gaps thus formed in the 
spadeful of sand. The worms are rather brittle, and consider- 
able care had to be exercised in raising the mass of sand, and 
further separating it, so as to liberate the worms. Sometimes 
such a spadeful would produce only one or two worms, at other 
times considerable numbers might be obtained; but the work 
of sorting through such masses of wet sand was no light task. 
We usually spent a couple of hours in this manner till the tide 
drove us back from the Magelona area. 
The body of Magelona papillicornis presents two 
regions,—a short “ thorax,” with thick, muscular wall; and an 
“abdomen,” through whose thin walls the gut and its sandy 
contents can beseen. The general appearance then of the worm 
is sand-colour, for there is no pigment in the skin or body 
wall, but the very short thorax is of a faint madder- pink tint, 
or in some cases dull white, according, as later observations of 
captive specimens showed, to the condition of oxidation of the 
blood. When the worms, separated more or less from the 
sand, are placed in clean aérated sea water the colour of the 
thorax soon becomes a deeper madder-rose colour; as the water 
