96 THE NEREIDS. 



musket, while others present the appearance of a barbed 

 arrow. These weapons are used to pierce the bodies of 

 their enemies, and they frequently leave them in the wounds 

 they have made. The tubercles of the feet, from which the 

 barbed arrow-shaped bristles spring, are, in reality, quivers 

 full of arrows, stored there for the use of the animals to pro- 

 tect them from violence ; or, as Gosse fancifully observes, 

 *' You may imagine you behold the armory of some bel- 

 ligerent sea-fairy, with stores of arms enough to accouter a 

 numerous host." 



The number of such-like weapons in these worms is im- 

 mense. " Let me ask the naturalist," says Dr. Johnson, " to 

 count the number which may be. required to furnish the 

 garniture of a single individual. There are worms which 

 have five hundred feet on each side : each foot has two 

 branches, and each branch has at least one spine and one 

 brush of bristles, some of them simple, some of them com- 

 pound. This individual has therefore two thousand spines 

 at least, and if we reckon ten bristles to each brush, it has 

 also twenty thousand of them ! Let us look a little further, 

 not merely to the exquisite finish of each bristle, but to the 

 means by w^hich the host is put in motion. There is a set 

 of muscles to push them forth from their port-holes ; there is 

 another to replace each and all of them within their proper 

 cases ; and the uncounted crowds of these muscles neither 

 twist nor knot together, but play in their courses, regulated 

 by a will that controls them more effectually than any brace ; 

 now spurring them to convulsive energy, now stilling 

 them to rest, and then putting them into action with an ease 

 and grace that charm us into admiration, and fix the belief 

 that even these creeping things participate largely in the 

 happiness diffused throughout creation!" 



The Nereids^ which belong to the same class of sea-worms, 

 have a long body, narrowed towards the inferior extremity, 

 and divided into numerous segments, with well-developed 



