" They are composed of five strips of
bony substance, with enamel-like tips overlying each other in the centre
of the disc-shaped mouth. With this splendid instrument the creature grips
and breaks off or gnaws off, or bores out crumbs of coral which you find,
apparently in process of digestion, as you render him an acceptable
morsel. Scientific observers affirm that by means of an acid which the
ECHINUS secretes, it disintegrates the rock, and that the jaws are used
merely to clear away the softened rubbish. How is it then that the
globular cavity is often well-ballasted with tiny crisp chunks of coral
rock? Possibly to the assimilation of the lime is due, in some
measure, the singularly sweet and expressive savour. So we see the
coral-reef-building polyps toiling with but little rest, almost
incessantly labouring to raise architectural devices of infinite design,
and other creatures as industriously tearing them down to form the solid
foundation of continents.
Another species of ECHINUS eludes its enemies by the adoption of a
cumbersome and forbidding mask. Ineffectively armed, the spines though
numerous being short and frail, it holds empty bivalve shells on its
uppermost part, The unstudied accumulation of debris--a fair sample of
the surrounding ocean floor--would fail to fix notice, but that it moves
bodily and without apparent cause.
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