THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 71 



nurture. It may be counteracted, though not lessened, 

 by enormoiis multiplication; and that expedient is also 

 familiar on the shore. A single oyster may have sixty 

 million eggs — ^which leaves a considerable margin for 

 deaths. We may recall also the famous case of the palolo- 

 worms (Eunice viridis) of the coral-reefs of Samoa and 

 elsewhere. Once a year, with striking regularity, myriads 

 of these worms crawl out tail foremost from the crevices 

 they inhabit, and agitate themselves so violently that 

 while the head end remains in the rock the posterior ends 

 drop off and make the water ' like vermicelli soup'. These 

 headless worm-bodies are laden with egg-cells and sperm- 

 cells, and these are shed in countless millions in the water, 

 so that the fertiUzation is quite secure. The swarming 

 begins shortly before sunrise, and it is mostly over in half 

 an hour. Everything is extraordinary — ^the sharp punc- 

 tuation of the time of reproduction (different in Pacific 

 and Atlantic), the subtle stimulus of the moonlight and 

 the sunrise, the discharge of the multitudinous writhLag 

 bodies, the profuse sowing of the seed ; but perhaps the 

 most extraordinary thing is the evasion of the death - 

 penalty which reproduction, especially exuberant repro- 

 duction, often involves for the parent. For the heads 

 remain in the reefs and grow new bodies at their leisure. 

 Given stimulating and hazardous conditions of hfe, 

 and keen competition among organisms, we expect to 

 find special adaptations, and the shore is full of them. 

 We have already referred to effective armour, such as 

 we see in crab and whelk. These have also their weapons 

 and so have many of the unarmoured, such as sea-anemones 

 and ribbon-worms (Nemerteans). Starfishes and brittle- 

 stars and many others illustrate the adaptation of ' auto- 



