281 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



impossible to repress our wonder and surprise at the prodigious 

 number of organs brought into action in the sea-urchin. More than 

 twelve hundred prickles have been counted upon the shell of Echinus 

 esculentus, a representation of which is given in Fig. 1 14. If we add 

 to this first supply of spines other smaller and in some sort accessary 

 spines, we shall arrive at a total of three thousand prickles. Each 

 sea urchin thus bears as many weapons as ten squadrons of lancers. 

 When it is considered, further, that in each sucker or ambulacra there 



Fig. 114. Echinus esculentus (Lamarck), natural size. 



exist not less than a hundred tubes, each having an orifice, you will 

 have a total of four thousand visible appendages upon the body of 

 an animal of very small dimensions. If it is considered, finally, that 

 no shell exists more admirably symmetrical, elegant, or more highly 

 ornamental than the carapace of the urchin, it will readily be admitted 

 that Nature has been most prodigal in her gifts to one of the humblest 

 beings in creation a creature which passes its existence in crawl- 

 ing in obscurity at the bottom of the sea. What elegance of form, 



