but this worm is the unrivalled, the
never-missing, the living line and hook fisher.
Monsieur Dumeril, the father of the French
naturalists, who first made this worm known
in France, called it un lacet—a lasso, or
an elastic noose.

Some British naturalists have called these
annelides, ribbon-worms. And these living
ribbons are of all sizes and colours. The
tarry Borlasia of our southern coasts is
certainly not a beautiful ribbon. A French
milliner will never recommend it to adorn
the smart hats of the Britannic ladies, and
would shriek at the fancy of allying
it to the little flower-pots worn upon the
top-knots of Gallic dames. However, like
many British things, our Borlasia is plain
but efficient. The ribbons found upon the
coasts of the South Sea Islands are of
a dark brown hue with reddish stripes.
Near Hobart's Town, Van Diemen's Land,
there are found Borlasia of a beautiful
golden yellow with brown bands, and a very
black narrow stripe running along the back.
There is also found, upon those shores, a
variety with violet brown sides and a white
line along the belly. The Borlasia of Port
Jackson is of a deep bottle-green, with a white
wavy band across the flat obtuse head. On
each side of the neck there is a red pore. Worms
like these might furnish ribbon patterns
pretty enough to be called croquant in Paris.

The sea-side observer upon the
south-western coast of England, whose zeal to see
strange beasts has induced him to turn over
stones with a crow-bar, and forage in
crannies, can scarcely fail to find the tarry
long-worm near low water-mark. Mr. Charles
Kingsley describes it graphically in his
Glances, when he says it looks like "a tarred
string," and coils up into "a black, shiny,
knotted lump among the gravel, small enough
to be taken up in a dessert spoon." When
the coils of the Nemertes are drawn out upon
the hand it stretches out into nine or more
feet of a slimy tape of living caoutchouc, some
eighth of an inch in diameter, a dark, chocolate
black, with paler longitudinal lines."
Probably, it is by design that it looks like a
dead strip of seaweed, as it lies in the holes
of the rocks or under the stones.

All the observers of this singular worm
have been amazed by the wonderful power it
has of contracting and stretching its muscles
at will, by tying or untying itself into
innumerable knots. The long-worm glides and
flows in the water by means of vibratile
hairs which are discoverable only by the
microscope, although they cover the whole of
its body. When it wishes to change place,
it stretches out its serpent-like head and
gropes for a suitable stone at the distance of
fifteen or twenty feet from its previous
residence. When it has found a comfortable
stone it winds itself round it; and, as one end
is twined upon the new stone, the other end
is untwined from the old.

Mr. Charles Kingsley describes the
movements of the line and hook fisher, when
catching his prey, with a vivacity which could
only have been derived from the direct
observation of a very observant man and an excellent
writer. The little fish—a gobie or a
blenny—absorbed, probably, in the chase of
shrimps, mistakes the worm for a dead strip of
seaweed. So thinks the little fish who plays
over and over it, till it touches, at last, what
is too surely a head. In an instant, a
bell-shaped sucker mouth has fastened to its side.
In another instant, from one lip, a concave,
double proboscis, just like a tapir's (another
instance of the repetition of forms), has
clasped him like a finger; and now begins
the struggle; but in vain. He is being
played with such a fishing-line as the skill of
a Wilson or a Stoddart never could invent;
a living line, with elasticity beyond that of
the most delicate fly-rod, which follows every
lunge, shortening and lengthening, slipping
and twining round every piece of gravel and
stem of sea-weed, with a tiring drag, such as
no Highland wrist or step could ever bring to
bear on salmon or on trout. The victim is tired,
now; and slowly, and yet dexterously, his
blind assailant is feeling and shifting along
his side, till he reaches one end of him.
Then the black lips expand, and slowly
and surely the curved finger begins packing
him, end-foremost, down into the gullet,
where he sinks, inch by inch, until the swelling,
which marks his place, is lost among
the coils, and he is probably macerated to a
pulp long before he has reached his cave of
doom. Once safe down, the black murderer
slowly contracts again into a knotted heap,
and lies like a boa with a stag inside him,
motionless and blest.

The instruments of nutrition, like all
other organs of this animal, have not as yet
been studied with sufficient accuracy and
adequate science. Professor de Quatrefages,
in his elaborate and strikingly illustrated
monography upon the Nemertes, appears to
have fallen into a grave mistake. One of the
most important distinctions in the animal
world is the division of animals into animals
with digestive organs like the anemones,
and animals formed like all the higher orders
of the animal world. The distinction between
the vegetal and animal worlds is based upon
the absence or presence of a stomach.
Naturalists, when dealing with the animated
existences upon the doubtful borders of these
worlds, say that the sponge for example is an
animal, because it has a digestive sac.

Colonel Montagu, who has, during half
a century, enjoyed an established reputation
as an accurate observer, saw the organ in
action of which M. de Quatrefages denies the
existence. The description he gives of what
he witnessed wears the impress of reality.
The structure of the instrument which he
describes, is wonderful, no doubt; but it is
only a wonder in accordance with all the