How Animals Work. 



placed in position in the process of building its tubu- 

 lar home, decorating its outer surface with gleaming 

 pearly fragments of shell, and crowning the whole 

 with a wonderful network of branches which help to 

 support the long and slender tentacles when they are 

 extended; 



The completed home of the Sand-mason is really 

 a very remarkable structure, and to watch the little 

 artisan at work upon its erection is a most interest- 

 ing occupation, a$d one which almost any visitor to 

 the seaside may, with a little care and trouble, wit- 

 ness for himself. The Sand-mason worm may be 

 found at extreme low tide on sandy shores where there 

 is an admixture of fragments of shell ; the tubes, 

 crowned by these spreading branches, sticking up out 

 of the sand like a miniature forest, should the situation 

 be favourable. Now it is quite possible, with the exer- 

 cise of a little care and patience, to dig up one or two 

 tubes with their tenants inside, and to take them home 

 in a large jar of clear sea water. If one of the tubes 

 is carefully opened, the worm may be gently taken out 

 and placed in another glass jar filled with sea water. 

 The Sand-mason will at first go through the most aston- 

 ishingly rapid contortions, at last sinking to the bottom 

 of the jar exhausted. Now is the time to scatter a 

 small quantity of sand and shell fragments on to 

 the bottom of the jar, when the Sand-mason will at 

 once begin to extend its tentacles in all directions, and 

 begin upon the business of constructing a new house. 



A most extraordinary tube-builder is the Varied- 

 footed Worm (Chtetopterus variopedatus), which may 

 sometimes be found at lowest tide mark on the shore, 



