The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1886-08-09
A HOUSE OF SHELL.
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-off 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 a more fascinating and
marvellous story book than was ever
printed. Some of them we can read,
thanks to close watching and long
study, and l want to tell you few OF
the queer things we have found out.
One of the prettiest objects to be
found OH 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, fattened 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 a 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 shell.
Then they could be stretched out as
long as he wished, and the legs Nou
may call them) were, of course, not
larger than threads. The foot itself,
at the end of each thread-like leg, was
round fiat, like boys leather
sucker" and they worked in the
same way; that is, when the urchin
wanted to walk he thrust out his feet
on one side till they touched some
thing, where they stuck, held there, it
is said, by drawing out the air under
them; then he pulled himself along
If you find one alive, as you easily
can in the pools among the rocks on
our rocky coasts Gas in Maine), and
put him in soup plate of sea water,
you will soon see how he walks. He
will push out dozens of silvery threads,
fasten the little round feet at the ends
to the side of the plate, and travel
quite rapidly around it, to find the way
out. Try to lift him then, and you will
find you can not do it except by tear
ing away some of his feet.
One Of the most interesting things is
the way he grows. The baby sea
urchin is about as big as the dot over
one of the is, on this page; one can
| just see it moving slowly about in the
water; but with microscope he proves
to be an elegant little fellow, of the
oldest shape, perhaps more like a
painters easel than any thing else. 1,
is made of clear, glassy-looking rods,
with rose-colored tips on some Of the
upper ones. and covered with little
specks that reflect light and make il
very brilliant 1t moves about by wav.
ing in the water fringes of delicate
hairs-cilia the books call them-and
it is so very small that the waving o.
hairs will move it about.
Now, what is oldest about this queer
object is really sort of living cradle
for after awhile the real baby forms or
one side, and as it grows and become
sble to take care of itself, the beautiful
CLASSY cradle wastes away, till, whel
the young urchin can use its feet. anC
drag about its cradle (or nurse, as i
has been called), it wholly disappears
and the infant has nothing to do bu
grow.
How do you suppose this delicat
shell house gets biggerP for the urchil
never has but one, and when he wa
the size of pin-head it was not to-
big for him, and when he is as large a
| d ltdCup IL sui ubS Hill. LEU Ulc tcl
you. When the owner lived in it tn
box was made of several hundre,
pieces, and covered by the thin skin @
the living urchin. One work of thi
skin was to enlarge the house as fas
as he grew, and it was done by con
slant adding of building material t
the edges Of each piece; thus each on
became bigger, and yet they Away
fitted together. So you may say tina
the box grew as we'll as the urchin tina
lived in it.
Surely more wonders were neve
, packed in one little box; and haven
, told you all of them, either. 1t woul
take the whole paper to give the com
plete history of this strange little Great
. ure.
, When the urchin is dead the spine
, fall off, the body disappears, the SUI
tleaches it, and you may find his emp
, ty houses by hundreds cast up anon
a. L. Al n