SEA-URCHINS AND SEA-CUCUMBERS. 339 



flat spoon ; Avliile in the long, niucli-bowed spines wliich 

 densely crowd upon tlie back, the form is almost uni- 

 formly taper throughout and pointed. 



The animal sinks into the sand mouth downwards. 

 The broad spoons behind the mouth come first into 

 requisition, and scoop away the sand, each acting in- 

 dividually and throwing it outwards. Observe how 

 beautifully they are arranged for this purpose ! diverg- 

 ing from the median line with the curve backwards and 

 outwards. Similar is the arrangement of the slender 

 side-spines ; their curve is still more backwards, the 

 tips arching uniformly outwards. They take, indeed, 

 exactly the curve which the fore-paws of a mole pos 

 sess — only in a retrograde direction, since the Urchin 

 sinks backwards — which has been shown to be so effec- 

 tive for the excavating of the soil and the throwing of 

 it outwards. Finally, the long spines on the back are 

 suited to reach the sand on each side, when the crea- 

 ture has descended to its depth, and by their motions 

 work it inward again, covering and concealing the in- 

 dustrious and effective miner. 



Thus we have another instance added to the ten 

 thousand times ten thousand, of the wondrous wis- 

 dom of God displayed in the least and most obscure 

 things. " All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord-! " 

 (Ps. cxlv. 10.) 



There is an order of animals which naturalists put 

 in the same category as the Sea-urchins, but which an 

 unscientific observer would regard as possessing little 

 or no affinity with them. Some are like long, soft, and 

 fleshy worms, and others, which come the nearest to 

 the creatures we have been looking at, have still tho 

 lengthened form, which, however, so closely resembles 



