Il6 BY THE DEEP SEA. 



is right ; it is sometimes taken under stones, I dare say, for it 

 leaves its burrow occasionally and sees the outside world. A 

 living specimen now before me is in that free condition, having 

 quitted its stone yesterday, Boxing Day, 1895, and not yet 

 settled down again. He is evidently an up-to-date worm, and 

 goes out on Bank Holidays ! He is about four inches long, 

 though from his restless wriggling and obvious objection to 

 assuming a straight form, it is not easy to measure him accur- 

 ately. His body proper is of a fine cinnabar colour, and 

 appears to be hung loosely in a clear outer skin, which is very 

 roomy in the fore half, sufficiently so to allow the contained 

 body to curl and twist and double upon itself without affecting 

 the envelope. A series of sausage-shaped expansions of this 

 envelope constantly travel from the rear, forwards, and are 

 caused by water that has passed through the creature's gills 

 and is now making its way out along the outer envelope. 

 Cirratulus has a head, a rather poor one, and a mouth, but it 

 is not easy to find either, for the segments near the head pro- 

 duce an enormous mop of tentacular processes, many of them 

 five inches in length, which completely hides the head and 

 mouth. These are of the same bright red as the body, and 

 when they are extended in all directions, and the creature in 

 a good light is shown to those ignorant of Annelid-beauty as 

 a worm, it causes a considerable shock to their notions of 

 worm-repulsiveness. This shock is not abated when the light 

 plays on the bristles and a ripple of silvery flashes runs along 

 them. In the dark a gentle touch will cause the entire crea- 

 ture to flash with a bluish electric light, which runs also along 

 every one of the hundreds of finely attenuated filaments from 

 the head-region. 



There is a group of these lowly creatures that are really 

 magnificent. They build no tubes, neither do they sink defi- 

 nite tunnels, but they shun the light and lurk under stones, in 

 the chinks of rocks, and round about the roots of seaweeds. 

 Such are the Leaf- worms (Nereis) , of which several are of 



