Congers generally live in rather shallow water off a rocky coast, where there are plenty of nooks and crevices in which they can hide during the daytime. It is rather curious to find that those which live in muddy places are nearly always dark brown or black in color, while those which lie upon sand are light-colored, and sometimes almost white. These eels are generally caught by means of long lines, which are set at intervals with short "snoods" just like those which are used in catching cod. The hooks are generally baited with pilchards, or else with pieces of the long arms of cuttles. When the congers are lifted on board the scene is usually an exciting one, for they are very powerful and active, and go twisting and writhing about in the most extraordinary manner, slapping vigorously on all sides with their long tails. These tails, too, to some extent, are prehensile, and sometimes the fishes will seize the gunwale of the boat, and then, with a sudden effort, pull themselves over the side and drop back into the water. As soon as they are lifted on board, the fishermen always try to stun them by a heavy blow on the lower side of the body, after which, of course, they can be easily killed. Congers feed, as a rule, upon mollusks, which we wrongly call shell-fish, devouring them shells and all. They will also eat small fishes, however, and sometimes they are cannibals; for inside the body of one of these fishes a young conger was found that was three feet in length! AMPHIOXUS, OR LANCELET In this we see a creature so curiously formed that a good many naturalists have doubted whether it ought to be ranked among the fishes at all. For in appearance it is much more like a slug; and it has no skull, and no brain, and no bones, and no eyes, and no gills, and no heart! It has a fin running along its back, however, and although it has no spine, it possesses a spinal cord. So it is considered as the very lowest of all the fishes, and as a kind of link between the animals with bones and those without them. This strange little creature is about two inches and a half long when fully grown, and is so transparent that one can almost see through its body. It is very active, and can wriggle and twist about in the water, or on the mud, with considerable speed. It spends most of its life concealed under large stones, or lying almost buried in the muddy sand at the bottom of the sea. And it seems to feed upon those minute atoms of decaying animal and vegetable matter which are always floating about in countless millions in the waters of the sea. INVERTEBRATES CHAPTER XXXII INSECTS