Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-07-29
A HOUSE OF SHELL.
The Many Wonderful Things Packed In
One Little Box.


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 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, tiattened ON top ex-
actly like a 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
His mouth opened on the under side of
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,
hat d., l. Il fall
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
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 as
long as he wished, and the legs (you
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.
Ii 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 a 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. 1t
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 it
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 of
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 on
one side, and as it grows and becomes
able to take care Of itself, the beautiful
CLASSY cradle wastes away, till, when
the young urchin can use its feet. and
drag about its cradle Cor nurse, as it
has been called), it wholly disappears,
and the infant has nothing to do but
grow.
How do You suppose this delicate
shell house gets biggerP for the urchln
never has but one. and when he was
the size of a pin-head it was not too
big for him, and when he is as large as
a teacup it still fits him. Let me tell
you. When the owner lived in it. the
box was made of several hundred
pieces, and covered by the thin skin of
the living urchin. One work of this
skin was to enlarge the house as fast
as he grew, and it was done by con-
slant adding of building material to-
the edges OF each piece; thus each one
became bigger, and yet they always,
fitted together. So you may say that
the box grew as well as the urchin that
lived in it.
Surely more wonders We're neven
packed in one little box; and | haven't
told you all of them, either. 1t would
take the whole paper to give the COM
plete history of this strange little Great
Nre.
When the urchin is dead the spines
fall off, the body disappears, the sun
hleaehes it, and you may find his emp
tv houses by hundreds cast up among
the ea-drift on the shore. L Christian