IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 259 
suckers on his feet are like the wet leather suckers with which 
you boys lift stones, and they work so well that their owner can 
walk up the glass sides of an aquarium. 
But spines for protection, and feet for walking, are not all 
that the little Urchin carries outside of his shell ; there are a good 
many of what are called — for short — Pcdicillarice, and the use of 
which is not yet decided by the wise men. They look something 
like spines, only they have a sort of three bladed end, which con- 
tinually opens and shuts. Whether to keep off the sea weeds and 
little zoophytes, which are sure to settle and grow on any object 
which remains quiet on the bottom of the sea, or for whatever 
unknown purpose, there they are, and their number added to the 
spines and the feet, make the enormous number of four thousand 
appendages, which the little Sea Urchin carries on his shell. And 
he's just the size of the picture, too ! 
But here is another picture of his shell, with the spines and 
other things all off. The little knobs 
you see, are the places on which are 
fastened the spines and the other things 
with the long name ; and the holes are 
the places through which he puts his 
feet. 
I told you how he enlarged his 
house ; but look at his teeth ! There are 
five of them, which you see sticking 
down below his shell, meeting in a point. They are very hard at 
their points, like the teeth of rats, which are made to gnaw very 
hard substances, and soft at their bases, so that, as they wear off at 
the end, they grow longer from the top. Thus, you see, he will 
never starve, because his teeth are worn smooth. 
One thing, which the Sea Urchin is fond of doing, will show 
you how hard are his teeth. He hollows out a house for himself 
in the hardest rocks, entirely by digging it out with his teeth. 
Droll enough it looks, I can tell you, to see a family of Sea Urchins 
sitting in holes in a rock ; sometimes as many as a dozen together. 
His teeth are also, of course, used to eat with, and because shells 
have been found in his stomach, he is supposed to dine on some of 
his neighbors at the bottom of the sea. 
It is generally supposed that he has no eyes, but a gentleman, 
who tried to take one out of a shallow pool, was convinced that it 
