360 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR 



glances of those around us have all these things failed to impress 

 you ? Can you help feeling that your plots are discovered, or seeing 

 that your conspiracy is already checked and stifled by the fact that 

 every one here knows all about it ? Do you think there is a man 

 among 1 us T/ho knows not what you did last night, or the night before, 

 where you were, whom you summoned to your councils, or what plans 

 you adopted ? O the depravity of our age ! The senate is cognisant 

 of this the consul sees it and yet this man lives. Did I say lives ? 

 Why, he comes into the senate, he takes part in our political discus- 

 sions, and all the time his eye is noting each one of us, and marking 

 him down for assassination ; while we brave men that we are are 

 supposed to be doing our duty by the state if only we avoid his frenzy 

 and murderous attacks. In justice, Catiline, the consul's order should 

 long ago have doomed you to death and the destruction you have all 

 the while been plotting against us. Did not Publius Scipio, the chief 

 pontiff, a man of the highest position, put to death in his private 

 capacity Ti. Gracchus, who was only weakening the constitution in a 

 moderate degree ; and shall we, the consuls, put up with Catiline, who 

 is eager to desolate the whole earth with sword and fire ? I say 

 nothing of the deeds of the remote past, such as C. Servilius Ahala 

 slaying with his own hand Sp. Mselius, who was aiming at a revo- 

 lution. There was once, but it is gone, such a feeling of honour in 

 our state that the brave citizens would punish a traitor among their 

 fellows more severely than their bitterest foe. We have a decree 

 of the senate passed against you, Catiline, in stringent and severe 

 terms. The senatorial order does not withhold from the state the 

 benefit of its talent and authority; it is ourselves I say it openly 

 ourselves, the consuls, who are wanting in our duty. 



RECREATIVE NATURAL HISTORY. 



SOME LAND, SEA, AND FRESH-WATER SHELLS, WORMS, AND 



TUBE-DWELLERS (continued). 



AT the conclusion of our last paper we were engaged in 

 examining certain upturned hills of fine sand, left partially dry 

 by the departed tide. If we provide ourselves with a spade, 

 and dig deep enough, we shall find a specimen of the common 

 " lug " worm of the coast fishermen. This creature resembles 

 in a marked degree the large lob worms found in our rich culti- 

 vated lands and kitchen gardens. Unlike some of the annelids 

 we have before described, these creatures need no defensive 

 armour, either of hardened shell or cemented sand-grains. 

 Dwelling in a hole or burrow of its own excavation, both the 

 luy (represented at Fig. 1) and lob depend for immunity from 

 danger mainly to their extraordinary power of retrograde move- 

 ment, assisted by the peculiar mechanical arrangement of their 

 external surfaces, aided by the increase and diminution of cir- 

 cumference and length, brought about by the sudden and forci- 

 ble imprisonment of the natural fluids contained within and 

 acted on by the system of muscular arrangement with which the 

 body is surrounded and fortified. Progression, or the act of 

 crawling, is mainly dependent on this alternate, or forward and 

 back injection of the juices. Wound a sea-worm with any sharp 

 instrument in such a way that there may be an escape of this 

 vital and movement-giving fluid, and paralysis immediately fol- 

 lows. Marine worms are less hardy than some we shall have to 

 notice, as fishermen and naturalists well know. Although not 

 provided with legs, most members of the worm family manage 

 to travel with tolerable celerity even on the surface of the earth. 

 When in their underground burrows, or tubes, they are capable 

 of performing extremely rapid movements. 



Most of our readers will have observed the manner in which 

 the large lob or garden worms protrude their heads and the 

 greater portion of their bodies from their earth tubes on warm, 

 moist evenings. To capture them, it is necessary to act with 

 considerable adroitness and rapidity. The worm once seized 

 must be instantly plucked forth, or the myriads of rough, tooth- 

 like asperities with which the creature's covering tissues are 

 provided are elevated by muscular contraction, thus rendering 

 any attempt at extraction perfectly futile. So powerful, too, is 

 the resistance set up, that the worm may be completely severed 

 before it relaxes its hold on the interior of its dwelling. By 

 this mode of action it endeavours to guard itself against the 

 attacks of surface enemies, but these are not alone to be dreaded. 

 That accomplished sapper and miner, the mole, with his pointed 

 snout and exquisitely formed digging-feet, and half shovel, half 

 rake-shaped hands, drives his galleries beneath the tiny passages 

 of the worms, who, feeling a vibration and disturbance going on 

 below, dart rapidly upwards, quit their burrows, and crawl 

 panic-stricken away, they know not whither. 



Here, then, we have a link by which we can trace out another 

 instance of the marvellous and perfect provision made by 

 Creative Wisdom for the support of living things. 



Let us see how the long-beaked, nocturnal worm-feeding 

 birds (of which the snipe and woodcock of this country, and the 

 apteryx of Tasmania are familiar examples) proceed when in 

 search of food. They are far too wise to grasp the half-sheltered 

 worm, and try vainly to draw it forth. Instinct teaches a better 

 way of proceeding. There is not, perhaps, in the whole world 

 a more skilful worm-catcher than the common snipe. Running 

 actively along the soft, oozy ground, where moisture and de- 

 composing vegetation afford nutriment for its prey, the long, 

 slender-toed bird peers keenly downward with its full round 

 eye, and on detecting a worm-hole, down is thrust the long, 

 probe-like beak, which is again and again opened as far as the 

 capacity of the tube will allow, thus causing a movement 

 amongst the minute fibres of the plant roots and particles of 

 earth, and bringing about a state of panic and alarm amongst 

 the worms just as great as when our little fur-clad miner was at 

 his labours below ; and now the snipe reaps his harvest, and 

 gleans from the ranks of the fugitives worm-food enough for a 

 hearty meal. 



Those of our readers who are desirous of witnessing the 

 manner in which the beaks of certain birds are opened, after the 

 manner of reversed action forceps, for disturbing purposes, may 

 do so by placing a piece of loose turf with a few ants' eggs in it 

 before a common starling, who, although unlike the members of 

 the family Scolopax in most particulars, resembles them in the 

 dexterity with which it forces impediments asunder by spreading 

 open its mandibles. 



We have already remarked how easily the sea-worms are 

 deprived of vital power by the infliction of a trifling wound. 

 We shall see that there are worm mud-dwellers, equally delicate 

 in appearance, who possess constitutions infinitely stronger than 

 their marine cousins. Let us visit the shores of some of our 

 large tidal rivers above salt-water influences, and as we wander 

 on amongst the willows and tufted reeds we shall see, where 

 some tiny rill discharges itself into the main stream, a large 

 patch of red-looking matter, as though some extravagant painter 

 had been heedlessly casting away his stock of vermilion. Break 

 off that old dry willow stump, and throw it well out to the 

 scene of the artist's recklessness, and, as though touched with 

 an enchanter's wand, the red is gone, and nought but mud 

 remains. The red blotch was formed by a legion of tiny red 

 worms (Nats littoralis) ; and so obstinately tough and tenacious 

 of life are these extraordinary pigmies, that they appear perfectly 

 and supremely indifferent to the decapitating process so long as 

 it is not repeated frequently enough to become tedious. It has 

 been found from experiment that the no/is is very little, if at all, 

 the worse for having its little head cut off seven distinct times, 

 as an excellent and perfectly satisfactory new one sprouted out 

 in good time. But after the appearance of the seventh new 

 head matters must be allowed to rest as they are, or the nais 

 dies literally from the expenditure of too much vital force in 

 the formation of heads for itself. Not only is the na'is prolific 

 in this respect, but a feat, which has bidden defiance to the 

 efforts of the most zealous and industrious of the human race to 

 perform, is by it achieved perfectly. 



We often hear particularly active friends exclaim, " It is im- 

 possible for any living creature to be in three or four places at 

 the same time." Do not believe a word of it. M. Bonnet, a 

 French naturalist, deliberately cut one of our little no/is friends 

 into twenty-six tiny fragments. Each fragment formed a head 

 for itself, and shortly became a perfect worm, thus calling into 

 separate life twenty-six organisms from one original stock. 



Research has shown that these tiny creatures, insignificant as 

 they at the first glance appear, possess a most perfect and ad- 

 mirable arrangement for blood connection, as shown in Fig. 2, 

 which represents a magnified view of the blood tubes and lines 

 of connection in the Nats filiformis. 



Fig. 3 shows the interior, or head portion, of a common 

 earth-worm after division. The wounded surface rapidly draws 

 together ; its central portion forms a ventral orifice, and all the 

 functions of the creature go on as before. Figs. 4 and 5 repre- 

 sent the eggs of earth-worms ; Fig. 4 shows the valvular mouth 

 of the egg open for the worm to pass through ; Fig. 5 shows it 

 closed, with two young worms in the same egg. 



As we proceed, we shall find amongst another class of 



