WONDERS OF THE SHORE 1371 



may be pardoned if he shrinks from them in dis- 

 gust. At all events, whether we were intruding or 

 not, in turning this stone, we must pay a fine for hav- 

 ing done so; for there lies an animal as foul and 

 monstrous to the eye as "hydra, gorgon, or chimaera 

 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, knot- 

 ted 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 endless 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 hangs, helpless 

 and motionless, a mere velvet string across the hand. 

 Ask the neighboring Annelids and the fry of the 

 rock-fishes, or put it into a vase at home, and see. 

 It lies motionless, trailing itself among the gravel; 

 you can not tell where it begins or ends; it may be 

 a dead strip of sea-weed, Himanthalia lorea, per- 

 haps, or Chorda filum, or even a tarred string. So 

 thinks the little fish who plays over and over it, till 

 he touches at last what is too surely a head. In an 

 instant a bell-shaped sucker mouth has fastened to 

 his side. In another instant, from one lip, a con- 

 cave double proboscis, just like a tapir's (another 

 instance of the repetition of forms), has clasped 

 him like a finger; and now begins the struggle: but 



