CHAPTER VIII 



SEA CUCUMBERS AND 



JELLYFISHES 



PLATE XXXIX 

 THE SEA CUCUMBER (i) 



TF you grope about in the dark nooks and 

 corners of a rock-pool, quite close down to 

 the water's edge, when the tide is out, you may 

 perhaps find a curious little creature which looks 

 rather like a greyish-white cucumber, with an 

 odd feathery tuft at one end of its body. This 

 is a Sea Cucumber, or Sea Gherkin, and is chiefly 

 remarkable because it seems to suffer very much 

 at times from eating something which does not 

 agree with it. Then it cures itself in a very odd 

 way indeed. It gets rid of almost all the inside 

 of its body, reducing itself to very little more 

 than an empty bag of skin, with just a little tuft 

 at one end ! It throws off its teeth, it throws 

 off the lining of its throat, it throws off all its 

 digestive organs. You would think that it would 

 kill itself by doing this, wouldn't you ? But it 

 does not. And before very long new teeth, a 

 new throat lining, and new digestive organs grow 



in the place of the old ones, so that in a few 



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