596 Badiata. 
THE SEA-URCHIN. (Echinus miliaria.) 
This animal, which lodges in the cavities of rocks just 
beneath low-watev mark, on most of the British coasts, is 
nearly of a globular shape, not much unlike that of an 
orange, having its shell marked into ten partitions, with 
rows of projections like beads, which divide it. On the 
outside of the shell there are a great number of sharp, 
moveable spines, of a dull violet and greenish colour, 
curiously articulated, like balls and sockets, with tuber- 
cles on the surface, and connected by strong ligaments to 
the skin or epidermis with which the shell is covered. 
The mouth is situated in the under part, and is armed 
with five strong and sharpened teeth. The animal can 
move from place to place by means of its contractile 
tubular feet and its spines ; but its movements are slow 
and laborious. So tenacious of life are the Sea-urchins, 
that the ancients, according to Appian, believed that the 
body retained life even when cut to pieces. 
" If in the sea the mangled parts you cast, 
The conscious pieces to their fellows haste- 
Again they aptly join, their whole compose, 
Move as before, nor life nor vigour lose." 
In Marseilles, and some other towns on the continent, 
the Sea-urchin is exposed for sale in the markets, as 
oysters are with us, and is eaten boiled as an egg. The 
Eomans adopted it as food, and dressed it with vinegar, 
mead, parsley, and mint. 
ZOOPHYTES. 
Zoophytes were long supposed to hold a middle station 
between animals and vegetables. Most of them, deprived 
altogether of the power of locomotion, are fixed by stems 
that take root in the crevices of rocks, among sand, or in 
such other situations as Nature has destined for their 
abode ; these, by degrees, send off branches, till at length 
some of them attain the size and extent of lar^e shrubs. 
