Don't experiment with your fingers. On the gunwale of your
boat divest it of its slender black spines, and with a knife fairly
divide the spheroid body, and a somewhat nauseous-looking meat is
disclosed; but no more objectionable in appearance than the substance of
a fully ripe passion fruit. The flavour! Ah, the flavour! It surpasseth
the delectable oyster. It hath more of the savour and piquancy of the
ocean. It clingeth to the palate and purgeth it of grosser tastes. It
recalleth the clean and marvellous creature, whose life has been spent
in cool coral grottoes, among limestone and the salty essences of the
pure and sparkling sea, and if you be wise and devout and grateful, you
forthwith give praise for the enjoyment of a new and rare sensation.
The ECHINUS is said to be essentially herbivorous, but my cursory
observation leads me to the opinion (very humbly proffered) that it
fulfils a definite purpose in the order of Nature, too, and depends for
sustenance, or for the building up of its structure, upon certain
constituents of the coral. Does it not break and grind down to powder
the ramparts of coral? Clumsy and ill-shaped as it appears to be in
other respects, it has jaws of wonderful design, and known to the
ancients as "Aristotle's lantern.
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