54 Animal Life by the Sea-shore. 



v.— WORMS. 



Worms, in the wide sense, is the name usually given to a 

 large assemblage of animals, comprising a great variety of 

 forms, some commending themselves to the lover of beautiful 

 things in Nature, and quite unhke the miserable creatures 

 which the name suggests to the popular mind. The rambler 

 on the seashore cannot fail to come across a few at least 

 of the more conspicuous representatives of this division, 

 and, in the case of some, he may be surprised to hear they are 

 classed as worms. As a matter of fact, the division is incapable 

 of a simple definition. All we can say is, that Worms include 

 lowly forms of life with bilateral symmetry that can be assigned 

 neither to the Molluscs nor to the Arthropods, which, as we 

 have said in the preceding chapter, include the Crustaceans. 

 The higher worms, with which we shall start, approach the 

 Centipedes and Crustaceans in the ringed or segmented nature 

 of the body, differing chiefly from them in the structure of the 



FIG. 65. A POLYCII^'ETE WORM, NEREIS PELAGICA (AFTER JOHNSTON). 



appendages or limbs, which are quite different from the Arthropod 

 type. These higher forms are grouped as Annelids, with refer- 

 ence to the rings into which their body is divided. The 

 majority are characterised by the possession of peculiar tough 

 bristles, called chetae, which are particularly numerous in a 

 multitude of marine types termed, for this reason, Pol^xhstes 

 (many bristles). These worms are to be found abundantly 

 between tide-marks, and many are of a certain economic 

 importance as affording most valuable bait to fishemicn. 

 One of the commonest of British Pol3'chjEtes is Nereis 

 cuUrifera, a slender worm, some six to twelve inches long, 

 found below stones and in crevices of rocks (Fig. 65). It is 

 of a greenish colour, with a thin red line along the middle 



