THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 111 
English, one pierced like a sieve, which lies under 
the skin, and reminds one of the similar plates in 
the skin of the White Cucumaria, which I will 
show you presently ; and both of these we must 
regard as the first rudiments of an Echinoderm’s 
outside skeleton, such as in the Sea-urchins covers 
the whole body of the animal. (See on Echinus 
Miliaris, p. 89.) Somewhat similar anchor-plates, 
from a Red Sea species, Synapta Vittata, may be 
seen in any collection of microscopic objects. 
The animal, when caught, has a strange habit of 
self-destruction, contracting its skin at two or three 
different points, and writhing till it snaps itself into 
‘“junks,” as the sailors would say, and then dies. 
My specimens, on breaking up, threw out from the 
wounded part long “ ovarian filaments” (whatsoever 
those may be), similar to those thrown out by many 
of the Sagartian anemones, especially S. parasitica. 
Beyond this, I can tell you nothing about Synapta, 
1 An admirable paper on this extraordinary family may be found 
in the Zoological Society’s Proceedings for July 1858, by Messrs. 
S. P. Woodward and the late lamented Lucas Barrett. See also 
Quatrefages, I. 82, or Synapta Duvernzi. 
