Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/294

Rh merely straight slits. This bundle of lancets can be protruded at will to a considerable length, or withdrawn into the fleshy wart so as to be quite concealed, as in a sheath. Their direction is backward, and their main use is doubtless that of catching against the internal walls of the tube, and pushing the animal outwards. At the same time it is not improbable that their cutting edges serve to cut and dress the fragments of sand of which the tube is composed; and that the spongy cushions behind the bundles help to bring the work to that state of polished smoothness, which is needful to guard the soft and tender body of the Annelide from annoyance.

Some time ago a humorous periodical favoured the public with a portrait of "a Prime Minister" a-bolishing of his self." [sic] The marine naturalist is aware that the process is occasionally exhibited by other animals also; the faculty may perhaps be the link, which in a quinary arrangement connects the Prime Ministers with the Echinoderms. Certainly the latter possess this useful faculty in extraordinary perfection, as witness the triumphant way in which Luidia fragilissima laughed at Professor Forbes. A swell-gentleman in Regent Quadrant could not have "done" a police officer in more admirable style.

The Brittle-stars (Ophiocoma), as their name imports, are considered peculiarly prone to this suicidal work; but, for my own experience, though I have dredged a tolerable quantity (I say "quantity"