LUG-WORM. 



145 



mou garden slug than an earth-worm ; to which 

 latter creature, however, it is in near relationship. 

 One may therefore easily pardon the errors of the 

 earlier naturalists, who were deceived by the 

 external form, and classed the creatures accord- 

 ing to shape, and not according to anatomical 

 structure. 



To begin, then, with the worms, or annelids, 

 as they are called, being composed of a series 

 of rings bound together by muscular and ten- 

 dinous substances. The insects and many other 

 creatures, by the way, are also composed of a 

 series of rings ; but they possess jointed limbs, 

 and by virtue of those limbs occupy another 

 place in the system of living beings. 



The commonest of all the terrestrial annelids 

 is the earth-worm ; and there is a marine earth- 

 worm that corresponds with its terrestrial relative 

 in habits and uses. On the sand may often be 

 seen little heaps of contorted sandy strings, pos- 

 sessed of no compactness, but dispersing when 

 touched, and looking as if Michael Scott's familiar 

 were hard at work at his task of twisting ropes 

 from sea-sand, and throwing down his abortive 

 attempts. These ropes or strings are the sand- 

 casts of the lug-worm, a creature that is possessed 

 of no particular beauty, but is very useful to the 

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