Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-07-08

spot under the sun where there's plenty of
sand is good enough for him.
But must tell you about the body of
this interesting little worm, for he is a
worm, and belongs to the family of Tube
Builders. Back of his droll, cork-shaped
head he has pair of scarlet gills, shaped
like those on fishes. When he feels we'll
and sticks his head out of his house he
keeps these pretty gills in lively motion,
fiuttering back and forth like pair of fans.
And that is not all. Down each side of
his little, soft body he has a row of
knobs which look like warts as much
as anything, fifteen on side.
When studied through micro
scope these curious knobs are found
to be the most wonderful things about
him. Each one is divided into two parts
The back part swells out into soft sort of
a mop or spongy cushion, which is sup
posed to be used to scrub out and polish
the inside of his beautiful house-though
that's only guess, by the way, for he was
never caught using them, and of course he
won't tell anything about it, But the front
part of the knob is the strangest 1t con-
tains bundle of spears, or lancets, that
can be pushed out to great length
through hole in the top, or drawn in en-
tirely out of sight. There are about
twelve in each bundle, and they are long
and slim and elastic, like bristles, but
having sharp blades at the ends Some
are like a knife or sword, and others have
Sits in the edge; but all are of great
beauty.
What he does with so many sharp instru
ments is positively known. Hemay use
them to help build his house, and no
doubt he does push himself out of his door
with them-since he has no feet. But /
should think 800 or 400 spears were toll
cradle supply of weapons for peaceable
little worm at the bottom of the sea.
We might never have known much
about the Golden Combus Worm up here
on dry land but for a machine called q
dredge, which men drag alone on the bot
tom of the ocean. This is a sort of bag
with az iron edge, which scrapes up
thousands of these strange and wonderful
little fellows, who live quietly there and
who don't fancy being dragged out to the
light and air, | can tell you. Nor could
we see how they live, when we did get
them out, but for the aquarium. When
we can get them to feel at home in one of
those we can study them at our leisure.
The little fellow | have told you about is
not often found, but one fell into the
hands of Mr.. Gorse, an English gentle
man, and after week or two, when it got
used to the light and began to feel at home
in the aquarium, he studied its ways with
his microscope and told us all [ have told
you.
Those little Tube Builders are the old
est masOns known in the world Long
before men built their houses of brick and
stone, clumsily cemented together, these
insignificant little worms at the bottom of
the sea built their beautiful houses in that
way In truth, there's hardly an instru-
ment or tool that men can invent, or any
way of doing things that they can con-
trive, that we do not find, in greater per-
lection than men ever arrive at, in tiny
atoms Of insects and other live creatures.
-Ol5Ue IH0rn6 IN Christian Una0n