136 GLAUCUS ; oR, 
without exception is beautiful, who yet cannot, after 
handling and petting and admiring all day long 
every uncouth and venomous beast, avoid a paroxysm 
of horror at the sight of the common house-spider. 
At all events, whether we were intruding or not, in 
turning this stone, we must pay a fine for having 
done so; for there lies an animal as foul and 
monstrous to the eye as “ hydra, gorgon, or chimera 
dire,” and yet so wondrously fitted to its work, that 
we must needs endure for our own instruction to 
handle and to look at it. Its name, if you wish for 
it, is Nemertes; probably N. Borlasii;} a worm of 
very “low” organization, though well fitted enough 
for its own work. You see it? That black, shiny, 
knotted lump among the gravel, small enough to be 
taken up in a dessert spoon. Look now, as it is 
raised and its coils drawn out. Three feet—six— 
nine, at least: with a capability of seemingly end- 
less expansion ; a slimy tape of living caoutchouc, 
some eighth of an inch in diameter, a dark chocolate- 
black, with paler longitudinal lines. Is it alive? It 
1 Plate III. 
