60 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 
gling bodies are washed on to the sand by the 
tides, and the natives gather them in baskets 
to make a Palolo feast. About the same time, 
just as if they knew, the land-crabs come down 
to the shore, and there is a Palolo feast for 
them also. The regularity of the swarm is 
very interesting—an inside change in the 
animal keeping time with an outside change 
in the seasons—and it should be noticed that 
there are in other parts of the world other 
kinds of Palolo worms which “swarm” at a 
different time of year. The association with 
the moon is curious and so is the concentra- 
tion to a short time after midnight. The 
wriggling of the headless bodies in the water 
is another very interesting point. But we get 
furthest into the heart of the queer story when 
we notice that whereas many worms (and 
other animals, like butterflies, lampreys, and 
eels) die in giving rise to new lives, the 
Palolo-worms evade this penalty. They sur- 
render the greater part of their body, but the 
heads creep back into the coral reefs and 
begin again. 
