THE LUG-WORM. 701 



surprising elongation of the tube will be discovered ; or, perhaps, instead of a simple 

 accession to its walls, the orifice will be surrounded by forking threads of sandy parti- 

 cles agglutinated together." 



There are many species of Terebella, and even on our own coasts we may be 

 gratified with several beautiful forms of these interesting annelids. They have, to a 

 considerable extent, the power of reproducing lost portions of the body ; and it has 

 been found that even the whole mass of plumy tentacles can be removed without much 

 injury to the Terebella, which retreats to its tube, and after a while reproduces the 

 whole of the missing organs. 



SHELL-BINDER. Terebella conchtlega. 



The SHELL-BINDER is very plentiful on some of our coasts, especially those where 

 the shells of various molluscs are found in profusion. The tube of this species is built 

 almost entirely of little fragments of shell, and is of very great length so long, indeed, 

 and going so deeply into the sand and among the stones, that to procure a perfect 

 specimen is almost an impossibility, except by some rare good fortune. As this 

 creature makes its dwelling about midway between high and low water mark, it may 

 sometimes be procured by setting to work as soon as the tide has retreated, and, with 

 crowbar, pick, and shovel, making the best use of the few hours that can be given to the 

 task. I have never yet succeeded in extracting an entire tube, though I have often 

 tried to do so. 



PASSING from the tube-inhabiting worms, we now come to those which are free and 

 able to move about at pleasure. 



No one who has walked on any of our sandy coasts can have failed to notice the 

 numerous worm-casts which appear in the sand, between high and low water, being 

 most numerous where the sand is level, and becoming scarcer in proportion to the 

 steepness of the slope. Sometimes, when a large, marshy flat makes its appearance, 

 which is never entirely dry even at low water, these worm-casts become so numerous 

 that the foot can hardly be placed between them ; and even while the spectator is gaz- 

 ing on the wet sand, coil after coil of dark sand emerges from below, as if Michael 

 Scott's familiars were trying to fulfil their task of making ropes from sea-sand. 



These sandy coils are the casts of the LUG-WORM, so valuable to fishermen as a bait, 

 and which, when well settled upon the- hook, and tipped with a mussel, prove most 

 attractive to the whiting pout, rock cod, plaice, dabs, and other shore-loving fishes. 

 At every low tide the fishermen's boys may be seen busily digging for Lug-worms, or 

 Logs, as they generally term these annelids, and in a populous spot they will fill their 

 square wooden pails in a wonderfully short time. 



As a number of Lug-worms lie in a box, covered with sand, mud, and slime, twisting 

 and writhing about in a continual movement, they have by no means an attractive 

 aspect, and might even be thought repulsive. But if a single worm be taken from the 

 mass, washed, and placed in a vessel of clear sea-water, it assumes quite a different 

 aspect, and becomes a really beautiful and interesting creature. Its color is very 

 variable, but usually is dark green and carmine, some specimens being almost entirely 

 of the latter hue. Others, again, are nearly brown and some of a deep red. 



