WORMS OF SEA-SHORE. 125 



dainties, and, with sharks' fins, edible birds'-nests, cats, puppies, 

 and similar delicacies, are made into choice dishes, only available 

 to people well-to-do in the world. The great fishing-ground for 

 the trepang, as the animals are termed, is the northern coast of 

 Australia ; and the extent of the traffic, and the annual slaughter of 

 the Holothurice which it involves, may be inferred from the fact, 

 that considerably more than eight thousand hundredweight of 

 trepang annually finds its way to the China market, to gratify 

 the delicate appetites of the celestial epicures. 



The uninitiated reader would hardly have looked to the 

 Worms as a class of animals at all likely to furnish the Aqua- 

 rium with any of its pets ; and yet it is to that humble and 

 despised race that we owe some of its most interesting occupants. 

 The truth is, the Marine Worms are a far more engaging race 

 than most people are aware of ; although, now that the Aquarium 

 has given them an opportunity of showing themselves, they are 

 rapidly rising in public estimation. A plea, then, on behalf of 

 the Worms of the Sea-shore. 



Be it understood in the first place, then, that these Marine 

 Annelids form two distinct groups, in one of which the animals 

 are sedentary in their habits, dwelling in tubes of their own con- 

 struction, while in the other they are unprotected by any such 

 convenient domicile, and roam at large in their native haunts, 

 abundantly provided with organs of locomotion. It is to the 

 tube-makers more especially that the worms adapted for the 

 Aquarium belong, although two or three of the more erratic fra- 

 ternity occasionally share their captivity, one of the number 

 being a gorgeous fellow very well known on some parts of our 

 coast as the Sea-mouse ! 



By far the most attractive of the tube-making worms are those 

 popular favourites, the Serpulas. No less than eight or nine dis- 

 tinct species of these animals are to be found around our shores, 

 and though they all have a certain beauty of their own, it would 

 seem to be a well-understood thing amongst them, that the large 

 and showy species, Contortuplicata, is to take the lead and chief- 

 tainship of the family : for while the rest lie prostrate at its feet, 

 or meekly cling to it for support, attaching their tubes by their 

 entire length to the shell or stone to which they are affixed, this, 

 more ambitious beauty boldly stands erect for full the half of its 

 length, and woos and wins the admiration of all beholders. 



