CIDARID.E. SEA-EGGS. 271 



of the Sea-urchin to a hundred oars, with which it must 

 row, carrying its little invokers j after having cauo-ht 

 it, the Sicilian children scatter a little salt over it and 

 sing : — 



11 Vdcami, Vocami, centu rimi 

 Vdcami, Vocami, centu rimi 

 (Row for me, row for me, hundred oars). 



The Sea-urchin moves and the children are delighted.* 

 In Dalmatia, Echini are used as bait, when pounded, 

 in the basket traps called Nasse, and they are also 

 recommended as a care for diarrhoea. 



Echinus esculentus, the real Oursin comestible, or 

 Chdtaigne, is found in the Mediterranean, and also on 

 the coast of Brittany, and I have seen specimens from 

 the roadstead of Brest. Mr. R. Jones (as quoted by the 

 Rev. J. Wood, in his ' Natural History/ p. 722) gives 

 a most amusing description of sea-egg fishing in the 

 Bay of Naples, saying, " 1 had not swam very far 

 from the beach before I found myself surrounded by 

 some fifty or sixty human heads, the bodies belonging 

 to which were invisible, and interspersed among 

 these perhaps an equal number of pairs of feet stick- 

 ing out of the water. As I approached the spot, 

 the entire scene became sufficiently ludicrous and 

 bewildering. Down went a head, up came a pair 

 of heels ; down went a pair of heels, up came a 

 head ; and as something like a hundred people were 

 all diligently practising the same manoeuvre, the 

 strange vicissitude from heels to head, and head to 

 heels, going on simultaneously, was rather a puzzling 

 spectacle. On inquiry, it proved that these divers 

 were engaged in fishing for Sea-urchins, which are 



* 'Zoological Mythology,' vol. ii. p. 336. 



