THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 69 
eaten largely on some parts of our south coast) 
would be a staple article of food for sea-beasts of 
prey. And it is noteworthy, first, that the defensive 
thorns which are permanent on the two thinner 
species, aculeatum and echinatum, disappear alto- 
gether on the thicker one, tuberculatum, as old age 
“gives him a solid and heavy globose shell; and 
next, that he too, while young and tender, and liable 
therefore to be bored through by whelks and such 
murderous univalves, does actually possess the same 
briar-prickles, which his thinner cousins keep 
throughout life. Nevertheless, prickles, in all three 
species, are, as far as we can see, useless in Torbay, 
where no wolf-fish (Anarrhichas lupus) or other 
owner of shell-crushing jaws wanders, terrible to 
lobster and to cockle. Originally intended, as we 
suppose, to face the strong-toothed monsters of 
the Mediterranean, these foreigners have wandered 
northward to shores where their armour is not now 
needed ; and yet centuries of idleness and security 
have not been able to persuade them to lay it 
by. This—if my explanation is the right one -is 
