14 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



makers, for they pass the sand through their bodies 

 as they work below, and hence you see the internal 

 casts of their digestive systems in the familiar " sand- 

 worms/' or coils, which litter the shore. These are 

 the " fairy ropes " of the children. 



The old legend of Michael Scott, wizard par 

 excellence, tells us how, having engaged the Evil One 

 as a servant, he found it a condition of his own 

 safety to keep his diabolical servitor fully employed. 

 The proverbial mischief into which idle hands are 

 said to fall, was therefore averted by Michael the 

 Wizard setting his fiend to weave ropes out of the 

 sea-sand ; and the futile labours of his Satanic 

 Majesty, adds the legend, are to be seen after every 

 receding tide. 



There, in the distance, is a fisherman digging in 

 the sand for bait. When you look into his can you 

 see a wriggling mass of green and brown worms, 

 each with a big thickened head and a narrower body. 

 This is the lobworm, dear to the hearts of sea-fishers. 

 Along the sides of its body you see the gills existing 

 in the shape of curious tufts, which are really com- 

 plex loops of blood-vessels, wherein the impurities 

 of worm-organisation are got rid of, and its blood 

 purified by exposure to the oxygen of the sea. But 

 the "lob" is not an architect in any sense. Scan 

 the sand around you, and notice that, rising from 

 its smooth surface, your eye can detect numberless 

 feathery-like tufts. 



You borrow the fisherman's spade, and remove at 

 one operation half-a-dozen or more of these tufts. 

 Then when you single them out from among the 

 mass with your fingers you see that each tuft is 

 really the top of a tube, and that inside this tube 



