WATEE-SPIDEES AND WATEE-WOKMS. 281 



a life in confinement. It lives in stagnant water, throngh 

 ■wMcli it swims quickly in a graceful and nndnlating manner. 

 It often fastens itseK to a stone or the like by means of its 

 sucker, and while in captivity it can frequently be seen thus 

 fixed to the sides of its aquarium, and waving its body to 

 and fro. It swallows most of its prey whole, and it may be 

 fed upon tiny garden- worms and small aquatic animals. The 

 Eight-eyed Leech is about IJin. long, and is of a reddish- 

 brown colour, sometimes marked with yellow or other spots. 



Besides the Leeches previously referred to, there are others 

 which will live readily in confinement, where they wiU be 

 interesting to those who care for them. 



While hunting over the weeds or mud taken out of 

 stagnant or slow-running water, one not seldom finds some 

 curious worm-like creatures, of various lengths, which swim 

 in an eel-like manner, and which, when at rest, frequently 

 anchor themselves, by means of a sucker situated at the 

 extremity of their body, to any hard substance such as the 

 side of an aquarium or to a stone. These animals are called 

 Nematoids, and they live chiefly upon vegetable matter. They 

 have a habit, while holding on to anything with their sucker, 

 of swaying themselves backwards and forwards until they 

 recommence swimming in the graceful undulatory manner 

 which has given to them the name of " eels." 



Among the Nematoids is sometimes classed the iateresting 

 animal known as the Hair Worm {Oordius aquaticus). This 

 curious creature has, at different times, given rise to some 

 extraordinary theories in regard to the origin of eels. I have, 

 more than once, in common with many others, heard it gravely 

 stated that when the hair from a horse's tail falls into a pond, 

 it will, after a certain amount of soaking, become endowed 

 with life, and take the form of the Hair Worm, which, in 

 time, under favourable circumstances, develops into the 

 ordinary eel. G. aquaticus is so long — being sometimes as 

 much as lOin. in length, and not half a line in thickness — and 

 it has a habit, when being held between the fingers, of 

 becoming perfectly rigid, after it has tied itself into an 

 apparently unravellable knot, that the rustic seems .to have 



