[343] INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS OF VINEYARD SOUND, K I ( . 41) 



to be about ten inches long and .10 in diameter. Its color is a dark 

 purplish or lurid brown, specked with white, and sometimes inclined 

 to red. Its head is very acute, and it has a smooth, swollen, dark 

 blood-red proboscis. It is a rapid burrower, penetrating deeply into 

 the fine mud and sand. The Maldane elongata V. is another worm allied 

 to the last, and usually associated with it, but this species constructs 

 rather iirnl, round tubes out of the line sand and mud, which are very 

 long and descend deeply into the soil, and are often .20 to .25 of an inch 

 in diameter. This worm is six or eight inches long, with a round body 

 of nearly uniform diameter, which looks as if obliquely truncated at 

 both ends, but the obliquely-placed upper surface of the head is bor- 

 dered by a slight ridge or fold on each side and behind. The color 

 is dark umber-brown, or reddish brown, the swollen part of each ring 

 often lighter grayish or yellowish brown, but usually bright red, owing 

 to the blood-vessels showing through. The intestine is large and filled 

 with sand. Another worm, belonging to the same family with the last 

 and, like it, constructing long, round tubes of agglutinated sand, is the 

 Clymenella torquata, (Plate XIV, tigs. 71, 72, 73,) but this species often 

 lives where the sand is more free from mud, or even in nearly pure, sili- 

 ceous sand, and sometimes considerably above low-water mark, though 

 it is also found in deep water. It generally constructs its long and 

 nearly straight tubes very neatly, of flue white sand, without ruud. 

 It loves, however, to dwell in sheltered spots, in coves, or in the lee 

 of rocks and ledges, and is also partial to those spots on the sandy 

 shores where eel-grass grows, building its tubes among the roots. It is a 

 rather handsomely colored species, being usually pale red, with bright 

 red bands around the swollen parts of the rings, but it is sometimes 

 brownish red or dull brown. It can always be recognized by the pecu- 

 liar collar on the fifth ring, and by the peculiar funnel-shaped caudal 

 appendage, surrounded by small papillae, and preceded by three seg- 

 ments or rings that are destitute of seta3. 



The large and singular worm, Antliostoma robwtum V., (Plate XIV 

 fig. 76,) lives like the last, with which it often occurs, in nearly pure 

 sand, where it is somewhat sheltered from, the violence of the waves, 

 but is also fond of places where there is more or less gravel mixed with 

 the sand. It sometimes occurs some distance above low-water mark, 

 and constructs a large, thick, somewhat firm tube by consolidating and 

 cementing the sand around its burrow. These tubes descend nearly 

 perpendicularly to a great depth, and can usually be distinguished by 

 a slightly elevated mouud of dirt around the opening, which is usually 

 different in color from the surrounding sand ; and sometimes there are 

 recently-ejected cylindrical masses of such earth on the summit of the 

 little hillocks. The worm itself, when full grown, is fifteen inches or 

 more in length, and nearly half an inch in diameter. The head is very 

 acute and the front part of the body is firm and muscular, with very 

 small lateral appendages, and fascicles of seta3 in four rows j but back 



