286 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
however. In Corsica and Algeria the melon-shaped urchin (Zchinus 
melo) is much esteemed. In Naples and in the French ports of the 
Channel the Echinus lividus is eaten. In Provence the common sea- 
urchin (Zchinus esculentus and Echinus granulosus) are the favourites. 
Sea-urchins are also eaten raw, like oysters. They are cut in four 
parts, and the flesh taken out with a spoon; they are sometimes, but 
more rarely, dressed by boiling, and eaten from the shell like an egg, 
using long sippets of bread, hence the name of sea-eggs, which they 
bear in many countries. : 
Sea-eggs were a choice dish upon the tables of the Greeks and 
Romans ; they were then served up with vinegar or hydromel, with 
the addition of mint or parsley. When Lentulus feasted the priest of 
Mars—the Flamen Martialis—this formed the first dish at supper. 
Sea-eggs also appeared at the marriage feast of the goddess Hebe. 
“ Afterwards,” says the poet, ‘came crabs and sea-urchins, which do 
not swim in the sea, but content themselves by travelling on the 
sandy shore.” For my own part, I have only once partaken of sea- 
urchin, and it appeared to me to be food fit for the gods ; but perhaps 
the circumstances sufficiently explain this dash of culinary enthusiasm. 
The Reserve Restaurant at Marseilles has not always been the vast 
stone edifice we now behold, backed majestically by the mountain, 
and fronting the sea on the promenade of the Corniche du Prado; in 
1845 it rose quite at the entrance of the port, a small glass cage, 
suspended as it were by a magic thread between the heavens and the 
sea. From this aérial dwelling, overhanging with unheard-of audacity 
the waters which surrounded it on all sides, we gazed on the most 
wonderful prospect in the world, and reposed ourselves, while enjoying 
this intoxicating scene, during which the ships were continually enter- 
ing the port, passing under our very feet. It was in this enchanted 
palace that sea-urchins were served up, supported by the traditional 
bouillabaise. 
As I have said, it appeared tome delicious. Was it the Provencal 
dish, the savoury bouillabaise, which contributed to my appreciation 
of the humble sea-urchin of the Mediterranean? Was not the 
marvellous view which I enjoyed from the heights of my empyreum 
of glass the indirect cause’ of it? This is a tender and charming 
problem which I love to leave floating in the clouds, half evanescent, 
of my youthful recollections. 
HOLOTHUROIDEA. 
The ignorant, like you and I. call the Holothurias Sea-cucumbers, 
and perhaps, for two reasons, they are not far wrong. The term 
