Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/288

Rh new feat; one even less to have been anticipated than the perpendicular wall-climbing I have described. It was now swimming on the surface of the water, or rather creeping along the inferior surface of the incumbent stratum of air (for that is the true expression of the action), as every one has observed the Pond Snails (Limnæa) to do in summer, and as the Nudibranchs, and many other Gasteropod Mollusca do also. It was interesting to see how much at home the little worm was at this performance; I doubt not he had enjoyed the fresh air in the same manner many a time; his body depended perpendicularly, while the thread-like tentacles were spread over the surface, wriggling and twining more suo, but advancing along the halcyon sea so evenly, that, in about an hour after, I saw that he had gained the opposite side of the bounding glass, a distance of about five inches.

These tube-forming Annelida are very interesting creatures; and many of them possess great beauty from the exquisitely delicate, and often highly coloured appendages with which they are furnished. Through the kindness of the Rev. C. Kingsley I possess a full grown specimen of the Golden-combed Worm (Amphitrite auricoma). When I at first had him he was very shy and timid, but after a week or two he grew more familiar, and would protrude his gilt combs, and carry on his avocations, as if quite at home. At first all that was to be seen was a tube formed like a rounded obelisk, or a factory chimney; being about one third of