286 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
impossible to repress our wonder and surprise at the prodigi° u 
number of organs brought into action in the sea-urchin. More tha 0 
twelve hundred prickles have been counted upon the shell of Echini 
esculentus, a representation of which is given in Fig. 114. If we ah 
to this first supply of spines other smaller and in some sort accessary 
spines, we shall arrive at a total of three thousand prickles. E aC 
sea-urchin thus bears as many weapons as ten squadrons of lancei' 8. 
When it is considered, further, that in each sucker or ambulacra the) c 
Fig. 114, Echinus esculentus (Lumarck), natural Hire. 
an orifice, you ^ 
of 
exist not less than a hundred tubes, each havirn 
have a total of four thousand visible appendages upon the body 
an animal of very small dimensions. If it is considered, finally> t 11 
no shell exists more admirably symmetrical, elegant, or more hig' 1 -' 
ornamental than the carapace of the urchin, it will readily be admit* 
that Nature has been most prodigal in her gifts to one of the huraW e 
beings in creation — a creature which passes its existence in era 
ing in obscurity at the bottom of the sea. What elegance of ^ oJ ^ ! 
