THE GIANT EARTH-WORM OF GIPPSLAND. 5 
the worm does with the immense quantity of earth which it passes through its body 
I cannot at present say, and it must also be noticed that, only on very rare occasions, 
can any trace be detected of leaves dragged down into the burrows. 
It is no easy matter to extract the worm without injury, owing to its length, the 
coiling of the burrow, the rapidity of movement which it possesses when underground, 
and its power of distending either the anterior or posterior ends of the body, or both. 
Directly the burrow is laid bare, the worm is seen gliding rapidly away, often 
producing the curious gurgling sound as it passes through the slimy fluid, always 
present in a burrow containing the living animal. Sooner than allow itself to be 
drawn out, it fixes, if held in the middle, both ends of its body, by swelling them out 
till they are tightly jammed against the sides of the burrow ; under these circumstances 
pulling merely results in tearing the body. The worm has been described as brittle, 
but this term is most inapplicable, as its body is very soft, and capable of a great 
amount of extension before tearing. Its curious smell, when living, resembling 
somewhat that of creosote, has been already observed by Professor McCoy, and when 
dead it is worse than ever, and very strong and characteristic ; the body in decaying 
passes into an oily fluid which, we were assured by one or two old natives of the 
district, is very good for rheumatism. Fowls refuse to touch the worm living or 
dead. 
When held in the hand, the worm in contracting its body throws out jets of a 
milky fluid from its dorsal pores to a height of several inches; if the burrow be 
examined carefully its sides are seen to be very smooth, and coated over with a fluid 
exactly similar to that ejected from the pores. Whatever be the primary function of 
the fluid when within the body cavity, there can be no doubt that it has the important 
and perhaps secondary function when it has passed out of the body of making the 
burrow walls smooth, moist and slippery, and of thus enabling the animal to glide 
along with ease and speed. 
The worm in its burrow moves rapidly by swelling up its anterior or posterior 
end as the case may be, and then using this as a fixed point, in doing which the 
sete perhaps help, though to a minor extent, it strongly contracts the rest of its body. 
In the next movement, the end free in the first instance will be swollen out and used 
as a fixed point from which expansion forwards can take place. These changes of 
motion follow each other so rapidly that in the burrows the appearance of continuous 
gliding is given. Outside the burrow when the whole body surface is not mm contact 
with the earth, the worm makes no attempt whatever to move, lying passively on 
the ground. Anyone who merely sees the beast removed from its burrow imagines 
it to be of a very sluggish temperament, and can form no idea of its active and rapid 
movements when underground. 
So far as locomotion is concerned, its setze seems to be of little or no use to it. 
The pericheete worms, on the contrary, when taken from the burrow, move along on 
the ground with remarkable speed, certainly using their setze as aids to progression. 
