72 NATURE'S TEACHINGS. 



perhaps, delicate organs of touch. The intermediate antennae, 

 the tentacles, and the cirrhi or filaments of the feet, are 

 similarly fringed with these little appendages, which resemble 

 the glands of certain plants, and have a most singular 

 appearance. 



" If we remove the shields, we discover, on each side of the 

 body, a row of wart-like feet, from each of which project two 

 bundles of spines of exquisite structure. The bundles, expand- 

 ing on all sides, resemble so many sheaves of wheat, or you may 

 more appropriately fancy you behold the armoury of some 

 belligerent sea-fairy, with stacks of arms enough to accoutre a 

 numerous host. 



" But, if you look closely at the weapons themselves, they 

 rather resemble those which we are accustomed to wonder at in 

 missionary museums, the arms of some ingenious but bar- 

 barous people from the South Sea Islands, than such as are 

 used in civilised warfare. Here are long lances, made like 

 scythe-blades, set on a stafij with a hook on the tip, as if 

 to capture the fleeing foe, and bring him within reach of 

 the blade. Among them are others of similar shape, but 

 with the edge cut into delicate slanting notches, which run 

 along the sides of the blade like those on the edge of our 

 reaping-hooks. 



" These are chiefly the weapons of the lower bundle ; those 

 of the upper are still more imposing. The outermost are short 

 curved clubs, armed with a row of shark's teeth to make them 

 more fatal ; these surround a cluster of spears, the long heads 

 of which are furnished with a double row of the same appendages, 

 and lengthened scimitars, the curved edges of which are cut 

 into teeth like a saw. 



" Though a stranger might think I had drawn copiously on 

 my fancy for this description, I am sure, with your eye upon 

 what is on the stage of the microscope at this moment, you will 

 acknowledge that the resemblances are not at all forced or 

 unnatural. To add to the effect, imagine that all these weapons 

 are forged out of the clearest glass instead of steel ; that the 

 larger bundles may contain about fifty, and the smaller half as 

 many each ; that there are four bundles upon every segment, 

 and that the body is co mposed of twenty-five such segments, 

 and you will have a tolerable idea of the garniture and 



