1362 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



cordatus, which burrow by thousands in the sand. 

 They are of that Spatangoid form which you will 

 often find fossil in the chalk, and which shepherd 

 boys call snakes' heads. We shall soon find another 

 sort, an Echinus, and have time to talk over these 

 most strange (in my eyes) of all living animals. 



I must mention Synapta; or, as Montague called 

 it, Chirodota a much better name, and, I think, 

 very uselessly changed; for Chirodota expresses the 

 peculiarity of the beast, which consists in start not, 

 reader twelve hands, like human hands, while 

 Synapta expresses merely its power of clinging to 

 the fingers, which it possesses in common with many 

 other animals. It is, at least, a beast worth talking 

 about; as for finding one, I fear that we have no 

 chance of such good fortune. 



But what is it like? Conceive a very fat, short 

 earth-worm; not ringed, though, like the earth- 

 worm, but smooth and glossy, dappled with darker 

 spots, especially on one side, which may be the upper 

 one. Put round its mouth twelve little arms, on each 

 a hand with four ragged fingers, and on the back 

 of the hand a stump of a thumb, and you have 

 Synapta Digitata. These hands it puts down to its 

 mouth, generally in alternate pairs, but how it ob- 

 tains its food by them is yet a mystery, for its in- 

 testines are filled, like an earth-worm's, with the mud 

 in which it lives, and from which it probably ex- 

 tracts (as does the earth-worm) all organic matters. 



You will find it stick to your fingers by the whole 

 skin, causing, if your hand be delicate, a tingling 

 sensation; and if you will examine the skin under 



