150 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



first glance it would seem impossible to avoid the numerous 

 weapons. Imagine a brittle tennis ball stuck full of long 

 slender needles, many tapering to microscopic keenness at 

 the points, climbing stiffly along the edges of rocks by a 

 few of the stilt-like needles, and a very fair figure of the 

 Echinus is presented. As a curious and beautiful creature 

 he is full of interest, and as an adjunct to one's diet he is, in 

 due season, full of excellent meat. We take the ugly and 

 forbidding oyster with words of gratitude and flattery on 

 our lips, and why pass with disrespect the creature that is 

 beautiful and wonderful as well as savoury ? To enjoy it to 

 perfection, extricate the creature from his lurking place far 

 down in the blue crevice of the coral, with a fish-spear. 

 Don't experiment with your fingers. On the gunwale of 

 your boat divest it of its slender black spines, and with a 

 knife fairly divide the spheroid body, and a somewhat 

 nauseous-looking meat is disclosed ; but no more objection- 

 able in appearance than the substance of a fully ripe 

 passion fruit. The flavour ! Ah, the flavour ! It surpasseth 

 the delectable oyster. It hath more of the savour and 

 piquancy of the ocean. It clingeth to the palate and 

 purgeth it of grosser tastes. It recalleth the clean and 

 marvellous creature, whose life has been spent in cool coral 

 grottoes, among limestone and the salty essences of the 

 pure and sparkling sea, and if you be wise and devout and 

 grateful, you forthwith give praise for the enjoyment of a 

 new and rare sensation. 



The Echinus is said to be essentially herbivorous, but 

 my cursory observation leads me to the opinion (very 

 humbly proffered) that it fulfils a definite purpose in the 

 order of Nature, too, and depends for sustenance, or for the 

 building up of its structure, upon certain constituents of the 

 coral. Does it not break and grind down to powder the 

 ramparts of coral ? Clumsy and ill-shaped as it appears to 

 be in other respects, it has jaws of wonderful design, and 

 known to the ancients as " Aristotle's lantern." They are 

 composed of five strips of bony substance, with enamel-like 

 tips overlying each other in the centre of the disc-shaped 



