. Little folks in feathers and fur, and others in neither. but look at his teeth ! There arefive of them, which you see stickingdown below his shell, meeting in a point. They are very hard attheir points, like the teeth of rats, which are made to gnaw veryhard substances, and soft at their bases, so that, as they wear off atthe end, they grow longer from the top. Thus, you see, he willnever starve, because his teeth are worn smooth. One thing, which the Sea Urchin is fond of doing, will showyou how hard are his teeth. He hollows out a house for himselfin the hardest rocks, entirely by digging
. Little folks in feathers and fur, and others in neither. but look at his teeth ! There arefive of them, which you see stickingdown below his shell, meeting in a point. They are very hard attheir points, like the teeth of rats, which are made to gnaw veryhard substances, and soft at their bases, so that, as they wear off atthe end, they grow longer from the top. Thus, you see, he willnever starve, because his teeth are worn smooth. One thing, which the Sea Urchin is fond of doing, will showyou how hard are his teeth. He hollows out a house for himselfin the hardest rocks, entirely by digging it out with his enough it looks, I can tell you, to see a family of Sea Urchinssitting in holes in a rock ; sometimes as many as a dozen teeth are also, of course, used to eat with, and because shellshave been found in his stomach, he is supposed to dine on some ofhis neighbors at the bottom of the sea. It is generally supposed that he has no eyes, but a gentleman,who tried to take one out of a shallow pool, was convinced that it. 230 LITTLE FOLKS could see him, because, whichever way he approached it with hishand, the creatures spines were instantly turned that way, as if forprotection. The ways of the Sea Urchin are interesting, though it is onlysince he has been induced to live in an aquarium that men havebeen able to study them much. I have spoken of his droll way ofwalking, rolling over and over, and of his making for himself a safehole in the rock, but some of them have another way of dig holes in the sand with their spines, throwing the sandup violently as they work, and gradually sinking down, then usingthe spines on the back to draw the sand back over them, so as tohide them. But they have no idea of being buried alive, so theyarrange a little hole with the same useful spines, through whichthey breathe and receive the sea water. A naturalist, who has studied them in his aquarium, tells ofsome odd habits of theirs. They are very fond
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublishe, booksubjectzoology
