PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



41 



Probably after the breeding season it retires to deeper 

 water. 



One of the most notable inhabitants of the ocean sand 

 beach is a gigantic Eunicid worm (fig. 7) well known to 

 fishermen as excellent bait. Prof. J. H. Ashworth has 

 kindly identified this for me as Onuphis teres. 1 



Bait gatherers sweep a lump of meat across the wet 

 sand at low tide. The worm detecting this, neither by 

 sight nor smell, but by, as Dr. H. G. Chapman terms it, 2 

 a "gustatory stimulus," rises from beneath the sand, darts 

 out its head, and grips the meat. Still holding the meat 

 in his left hand, the fisherman adroitly whips the worm out 

 of the sand with the right. Considerable skill and smart- 

 ness are needed to pull the worms out this way. Fisher- 

 men say that these worms reach a length of five feet. 



One member of the beach society has forsaken its native 

 element for a terrestrial existence. This is Ocypoda cor- 

 dimana (fig. 8), a small grey crab with square deep body 



Fig. S. The swift sand-crab, Ocypoda cordimana. 



1 Ehlers, Die Borstenwiirmer, i, 1868, p. 293. 

 2 Chapman, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. Wales, xxxix, 1915, p. 649. 



