Wormish

He has scarcely time wishfully to choose the prettiest one of the nurses who look curiously down from the windows above when he glides, still wormish, underneath a portcullis, which clangs behind him like the clang of doom, and the elevator slowly ascends.

Among his [Darwin's] typically methodical observations of wormish habits was the following: "Worms do not possess any sense of hearing. They took not the least notice of the shrill notes from a metal whistle, which was repeatedly sounded near them […]