SEA-WORMS AND SEA-ANEMONES 79 



or " lug-worm " (Fig. 4, a). A vigorous digging to the 

 depth of a foot or two will reveal the worm itself, which 

 is worth bringing home in a jar of sea-water in order to 

 see the beautiful tufts of branched gills on the sides of 

 the body, which expand and contract with the flow of 

 bright red blood showing through their delicate walls. 

 Other sand-worms, from 2 to 6 inches long, will at 

 the same time be turned up, — worms which have some 

 hundred or more pairs of vibrating legs, or paddles, 

 arranged down the sides of the body, and swim with a 

 most graceful, serpentine curving of the mobile body 

 (Fig. 4, b). These sea-worms are but little known to most 

 people, although they are amongst the most beautifully 

 coloured and graceful of marine animals. Hundreds of 

 different kinds have been distinguished and described 

 and pictured in their natural colours. Each leg is 

 provided with a bundle of bristles of remarkable shapes, 

 resembling, when seen under a microscope, the serrated 

 spears of South Sea Islanders and mediaeval warriors. 

 These worms usually have (like the common earth-worm) 

 red blood and delicate networks of blood-vessels and gills 

 (Fig. 4, c), whilst the head is often provided with eyes and 

 feelers. They possess a brain and a nerve-cord like our 

 spinal cord, and from the mouth many of them can 

 suddenly prottude an unexpected muscular proboscis 

 armed with sharp, horny jaws, the bite of which is not to 

 be despised. These " bristle-worms," or " chaetopods," as 

 they are termed by zoologists, are well worth bringing 

 home and observing in a shallow basin holding some 

 clean sea-water. 



At many spots on our coast {e.g. Sandown, in the 



Isle of Wight, and the Channel Islands) rapid digging 



' in the sand at the lowest tides will result in the capture 



3f sand-eels, a bigger and a smaller kind, from i foot to 



