362 The Clam-Worm, [April, 
the most abundant, while the reverse was the case with those dug 
out of the sand and gravel at the shores.” The same author tells 
of their habitats in shelly and gravelly beds, and even of their 
floating in great numbers at the surface of the water. This state- 
ment recalls a thrilling experience of our own many years ago 
inside of Sandy Hook. All told we numbered three, in a sail- 
boat, and our one object, squidding for blue-fish, the gamey Foma- 
tomus saltatrix. The wind was so stiff that we had enough on our 
hands to take care of ourselves and our little craft. It was a very 
warm day in August, and to my astonishment we went through a 
floating bank of these clam-worms, They lay close together, 
and the float seemed several hundred feet long, and owing to the 
high wind it was disposed in concentric drifts, or wind-rows. Our 
game was up, touch our squids Pomatomus would not—he had 
come to a banquet worthy of the gods—I cannot affirm whether 
_ the banquet had attracted them, but just after the Nereid course 
was finished, a school of Menhaden appeared, The blue-fish 
went for them, and the scene was simply pitiful. In their frantic 
efforts to escape, the poor things piled themselves one upon 
another, and the jaws of the terrible blue-fish, like a thousand 
shears, cut into them, while the air was alive with gulls screaming 
in delight over the carnage, as they were continually pouncing 
upon the floating fragments of the gory feast. As the Nereids 
deposit their eggs near shore, and as this scene was witnessed in- 
side of Sandy Hook bay, a good place for their breeding, and as 
my memory serves, the worms were small, it has seemed to me 
that they were young individuals. 
Wishing to resume study of the Actiniz, I procured from Fall 
river some specimens of Metridium marginatum, with a quan- 
tity of the green sea-lettuce, Ulva latissima, among which 
was one tuft of the succulent red alga, Rhabdonia tenera. The 
plants soon took on a fine growth. I became annoyed, however, 
at the unsightly appearance of ragged holes in the green fronds, 
and their number steadily increasing. Soon the depredator was 
detected at work in a thick bunch of Ulva. The red alga was 
not touched. This annelid browsing was an interesting sight. 
For every one of its many segments was a pair of parapoda, or 
side paddles, with which, though the action seemed serpentine, it 
moved about a plant as easily as a bird around an evergreen 
when seeking insects on the tree. And what a pair of jaws, each 
