392 A worm's armoury. 



accoutre a numerous host. But if you look closely at 

 the weapons themselves, they rather resemble those 

 which we are accustomed to wonder at in Missionary 

 museums, the arms of some ingenious hut barbarous 

 people from the South Sea islands, than such as are 

 used in civilized warfare. Here are long lances made 

 like scythe-blades set on a staff, with a hook at the 

 tip to capture the fleeing foe and bring him within 

 reach of the blade. Among them are others of similar 

 shape, but with the edge cut into delicate slanting 

 notches, which run along the sides of the blade, like 

 those on the edge of our reaping-hooks. These are 

 chiefly the weapons of the lower bundle ; those of the 

 upper are still more imposing. The outmost are short 

 curved clubs, armed with a row of shark's teeth to 

 make them more fatal; these surround a cluster of 

 spears, the long heads of which are furnished with a 

 double row of the same appendages, and lengthened 

 scymetars, the curved edges of which are cut into 

 teeth like a saw. Though you may think I have 

 drawn copiously on my fancy for this description, I 

 am sure if you had under your eye what is on the 

 stage of my microscope at this moment, you would 

 acknowledge that the resemblances are not at all 

 forced or unnatural.* To add to the efl"ect, imagine 



* It was not until after I had penned the above sentence that I met 

 with the following remark in Andouin et Milne Edwards' " Littoral 

 de la France" (ii, 40). Speaking of the bristles of the Annelides 

 generally, these learned zoologists say, — ': Leur usage nous a 6te d'au- 

 tant plus facile a comprendre que nous avons retrouve dans ces petites 

 armures les modeles exacts des diverses formes que I'homme a su 

 donner, avec calcul, a ses amies de guerre, pour les rendre plus re- 

 doubtables ct pour assurer leur coups ; il n'en possede certainement 

 pas de mieux adaptees a ce but que celles dent sont pourvues certaines 

 Annelides." 



