CHAPTER V 
ZOOLOGICAL NOTES, CONTINUED; GEOLOGY OF 
BARBADOS 
LOWER INVERTEBRATES AND INSECTS 
Annelids —A harvest of marine worms was secured by break- 
ing up masses of dead and even living coral. These were usual- 
ly brought up by our diver, or taken at low tide near the lab- 
oratory. Pounding this rock to pieces was not altogether an 
agreeable task, but it yielded good results. Miss Catherine 
Mullin had charge of the Vermes of the expedition, and the 
worms were at once turned over to her for examination and 
preservation. 
The most conspicuous form was a polychete, known to science 
as Hurythoa pacifica, and to the natives as the ‘‘sea scorpion.’’ 
It is a very large and formidable looking worm, often a foot or 
more in length, rather flat, plainly segmented, light orange in 
color with much darker reddish orange parapodia. It has a 
hairy or wooly appearance, due to the conspicuous tufts of 
transparent spicule-like sete born on each notopodium. There 
were hundreds probably, in each tuft. Individually, these sets 
were exceedingly slender, sharp, usually smooth, but sometimes 
with serrated sides, perfectly glassy and transparent when 
viewed under the microscope, and slender as the finest thread. 
The eyes were blue in color and easily seen on the prostomium. 
These animals are much dreaded by the natives, as the sharp 
slender setz penetrate the human skin at the lightest touch and 
appear to convey an irritant poison that is quite painful. They 
lurk under the rocks and were often uncovered by parties col- 
lecting at low tide when feeling about the little pools left by 
overturning the stones. Miss Mullin also reports that they were 
found in coral stone where there seemed to be no openings 
large enough to permit of their passage. She believes that they 
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