152 LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
beautiful and wonderful — beautiful because each 
bristle, being marked with the finest possible 
scratches, reflects light of all the colours of the rain- 
bow — crimson, scarlet, orange, yellow, green, blue, 
and lilac — according to the angle at which the light 
falls upon it, so that the creature looks as if it carried 
a forest of prisms upon its back. Wonderful, because 
each of these hairs is a sharp lance, by which the 
worm can protect itself from attack. In one of the 
sea-mice, the Aphrodite hispida> these bristles are per- 
fect harpoons, with barbed points at their tip and 
delicate teeth all along the edges, and they can be 
thrust out when the animal wishes to defend itself. 
But how, then, can the worm avoid cutting itself 
with these sharp instruments ? To prevent this each 
barbed spine has a smooth horny sheath, which closes 
upon it as it is drawn in and prevents it from tearing 
the tender flesh ! Such a creature as this deserves 
indeed to be called the king of worms, being at the 
same time so beautiful and so formidably armed. 
He lives in deep water, and is only to be found 
when thrown on shore, where he is very helpless, 
though in his own element he is a dangerous neigh- 
bour, as he feeds greedily upon all living animals, 
not sparing even his own brothers when they are 
weaker than himself. He is a timid creature, hiding 
under stones and in dark corners and shunning the 
light of day which gives him all his beauty, yet, in 
bidding adieu to the worm-tribe, we must acknow- 
ledge that none of them can compare, either in deli- 
cacy of structure or in their weapons of attack and 
defence, with the little sea-mouse, or, as he is often 
called, the " porcupine of the ocean." 
