Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1886-08-19
A HOUSE OF SHELL.
The Many Wonderful Things Packed In
One Little Box.

The Many Wonderful Things Packed In
One Little Box.
Most of the curious things you pick
up on the seashore are really wrecks
deserted houses, cast-otf clothes, or
outgrown cradles and retreats of some
of the many strange and wonderful
creatures that live in the sea. If we
could read the tales they might tell we
should have more fascinating and
marvellous story book than was ever
printed. Some of them we can read,
thanks to close watching and long
study, and want to tell you few of
the queer things we have found out.
One of the prettiest objects to be
found on the shore is lovely box as
white as snow, and more fragile than
the thinnest china. 1t is covered with
a pattern of tiny knobs and holes that
look like delicate carving, and it is
round in shape, fiattened on top ex-
actly like common white turnip.
These boxes are found of many sizes,
from little ones, the size of pea, up
to great-grandmothers as big as the
top of tumble, and in some parts of
the world as big as dining plate.
In this elegant house lived once a
very strange fellow called sea urchin.
His mouth opened on the under side of
his body, where the larger hole is in
the shell, and at that point he had five
big teeth, quite able to cut and dispose
of any thing he wished to eat. His
house, this pretty box, was covered
with long, sharp spines like thorns,
that made him an unpleasant fellow TO
take up. A spine stood up on every
one of the tiny knobs on the shell, and
could move about on it, exactly as you
can move your arm on the shoulder.
His feet were perhaps the oldest
part of him, though every thing about
him was strange. To begin with, he
had dozens of them; one coming out
of each of the little holes on the she'll
Then they could be stretched out AZ
long as he wished, and the legs Vor
may call them) were, of course, mo-
larger than threads. The foot itself
at the end of each thread-like leg, wa
round fiat, like a boys leather
sucker" and they worked in tn,
same way; that is, when the urchil
wanted to walk he thrust out his fee
on one side till they touched some
thing, where they stuck, held there, i
is said, by drawing out the air unde
them; then he pulled himself along.
If you find one alive, as you easil
can in the pools among the rocks OF
our rocky coasts Gas in Maine), an,
put him in a soup plate of sea water
you will soon see how he walks. H
will push out dozens of silvery threads
faslen the little round feet at the end
to the side of the plate, and travC
quite rapidly around it, to find the wa
out. Try to lift him then, and you Wi
find you can not do it except by teal
ing away some of his feet
One of the most interesting things
the way he grows. The baby sc
urchin is about as big as the dot owe
one of the is on this page; one ca
just see it moving slowly about in tn
water; but with microscope he prove
to be an elegant little fellow, of til
oldest shape, perhaps more like
painters easel than any thing else.
is made of clear, glassy-looking rod
with rose-colored tips on some of tn
upper ones, and covered with lit
specks that reflect light and make
very brilliant 1t moves about by wa
ing in the water fringes of delicat
! hairs-ciiia the books call theni-an
it is so very small that the waving
hairs will move it about.
Now, what is oldest about this que,
object is really sort of living cradl
for after awhile the real baby forms @
one side, and as it grows and becom
. able to take care of itself, the beautif
CLASSY cradle wastes away, till, wht
the young urchin can use its feet. ar
D drag about its cradle Cor nurse, as
G has been ealled), it wholly disappear
and the infant has nothing to do b
e grow.
How do you suppose this delica
b shell house gets bigger for the urch
never has but one, and when he W
4 the size of pin-head it was not t.
d big for him, and when he is as large
d teacup it still fits him. Let me t,
g you. When the owner lived in it {
It box was made of several hundr,
pieces, and covered by the thin skin
u the living urchin. One work of tt
skin was to enlarge the house as fl
:. as he grew, and it was done by co
| slant adding of building material
y the edges of each piece; thus each O.
Is became bigger, and yet they alwa
e fitted together. So you may say tn
/, the box grew as well as the urchin til
Ie lived in it.
Surely more wonders were new
]. packed in one little box; and havcl
told you all of them, either. 1t won
ID take the whole paper to give the col
n plete history of this strange little ere
II ure.
ell When the urchin is dead the spin
fall off, the body disappears, the s.
ell tleaches it, and you may find his EN-
le tv houses by hundreds cast up amo
pt the sea-drift on the shore. Christi
Il Union.
"a IN A KETTLE.