CHAPTER VI 



BECHE-DE-MER EISHERIES, 



j ECHE-DE-MER, Sea-slugs, Sca-ciicimibers, or Trcpniig, as the reef- 

 frequenting animals dealt with in this chapter are variously desig- 

 nated, represent an ordinal group, that of the Ilolothuridae, which 

 belongs systematically to the class of the invertebrate sub-kingdom 

 which is distinguished by biologists under the title of the Echinoder- 

 mata. The term Bcclic-dc-nier, by which the organisms are now 

 most generally known in trade circles, is the French form of the 

 older title of Bicho-do-niar, signifying a sea-worm or sea-slug, 

 which was suggestively applied by the older Portuguese navigators to that marine produce 

 which from the earliest times has constituted so important an article of commerce in China 

 and the Malayo-Polynesian region generally, where it is better known under the colloquial 

 title of Trepang. Sca-shtgs and sca-ciicmiibcrs are Anglo-Saxon titles, having reference to the 

 general shape of the animals, and they have been applied popularly to various allied species, 

 mostly smaller, and having no commercial value, which are indigenous to British waters. 



The class of the Echinodermata includes, in addition to the ordinal group of the Holothuridae, 

 or Beche-de-mer, all the innumerable varieties of star-fishes and the spine-bearing sea-urchins or 

 Echini. The fundamental structure in each of these orders is identical. This may be most 

 readily understood by an examination of their organs of locomotion, which are found, in each 

 of the allied groups mentioned, to consist of a series of extensile tubular organs, " ambulacra," 

 which terminate in adhesive suctorial disks, and are not possessed by any other class ot the 

 animal kingdom. The representatives of the Holothuridae, or Beche-de-mer, are distinguished from 

 their allies, the star-fishes and sea-urchins, by their elongate, somewhat cucumber or sausage- 

 shaped bodies, which are capable, in all the commercial forms, of great contraction and extension 

 The mouth, which is situated at one extremity of the body, is surrounded by a series of plumose 

 or tufted tentacles ; a circular or pentagonal aperture at the opposite end is the vent. 



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