(The Echini)

On the Florida Reef and off the rocky shores of California one of the most conspicuous among the rock-living animals is the black, long-spined Echinus. In the water it looks like a huge pincushion (Fig. 51) filled with black pins, points outward, and every crack and crevice is filled with them. When found on the beach, despoiled of their spines, they resemble bleached shells, and are then known in Florida as sea eggs (Fig. 52). The long black spines are continually moving up and down, and constitute the armament of the sea urchin, and an effective one to all except very large fishes, as some rays, which have pavementlike teeth fitted particularly for such not especially dainty morsels. The spines emit a bluish secretion which is left in the wounds made by them, and is more or less poisonous. This common sea urchin is a type of hundreds found in almost all seas from very shallow water to the abysmal regions of the ocean.

Some sea urchins have short spines (Fig. 53) and are almost pure white; some are flat like the sand dollars, the spines feeling like sandpaper, so short and fine are they. The latter are small, and appear to be covered with waving filaments. Many have spines like needles; in others the latter are blunt, clublike organs. Many other strange variations are seen in an exhibition of the various kinds in some museums. None are more remarkable than those having five holes through them like Chinese money (Fig. 54).

The urchins are very closely allied to the starfishes, especially in structure. They have the same kind of feet, and among the spines is seen a singular handlike organ common to the starfishes. It has three fingers (Fig. 55) and a short stem, and is constantly in motion, its office appearing to be to clean the body. Foreign objects are taken up by this peculiar hand and passed on from one to the other until they are finally dropped off. Here is the same madreporic plate or sieve, and the structure of the Echinus (Fig. 56) is very similar to that of the starfish. The former has a long set of jaws, hence is a biter and nipper, while the starfish is a sucker. The shell of the Echinus is really a beautiful object when divested of the spines and bleached in the sun, appearing as pure white as coral after bleaching. It is made up of about six hundred hard, limy plates arranged in double rows, which contain about thirty-seven hundred pores through which the feet protrude. Despite this marvelous supply of feet, or organs of locomotion, the Echinus is a very slow walker. The spines number four thousand or more, and each one works on the ball-and-socket plan, is hollow, and moves readily in all directions.

The sea urchin is produced from eggs. The young pass through some remarkable changes before they assume the adult form. In one of these changes they appear as free-swimming animals (Fig. 57), and resemble anything but the perfectly developed Echinus. Some of the sea urchins of deep water, as the Hermiaster and others, carry their young in pouches, the spines being folded over them to hold them in place. They rarely move from the crevice on the rock which they select. They can be found in the same place for months together, and have a limited power of wearing out the rock. How the Echinus grows inclosed in so hard a shell might be a puzzle did we not know that the shell is covered with a skin, each plate being literally surrounded by it. This skin secretes lime, taking it from the water and depositing it on the edges of all the plates, so that the animal grows rapidly and symmetrically. The Echini are the scavengers of the ocean, and they aid in maintaining the clearness and purity of the water. In some countries certain kinds are eaten, and one species is valuable for its spines, which are used as slate pencils.