In this uniform life, however, there are occasional crises, even as in the life of the poor human laborer. The sea retires from certain shores; in the summer, this or that rock becomes quite insupportably hot; and our oursin must have two houses, one for summer, and one for winter. A great event, that, of moving from place to place, for a creature without feet and covered all over with points. M. Cailland had an opportunity of observing the conduct of the creature under those circumstances. The weak and movable scoops which play backward and forward, are by no means insensible though he protects them somewhat by covering them with a little soft gelatine. At length he steadies himself on his thorns, as on so many crutches, rolls his Diogenes' tub, and attains his port as he best may. Arrived there, he shuts himself up again, and in the little nest which he almost always finds partly made, he concentrates himself in the enjoyment of his solitary and thrice blessed security. Let a thousand enemies prowl without, let the storm-lashed wave moan or rage, all that is for his pleasure. Let the very rock tremble at the dash of the breakers; he well knows that he has nothing to fear, that it is only his kind nurse that is making all that noise; he is safe in his cradle, and with a glad good night, he sleeps. CHAPTER VIII. SHELLS, MOTHER OF PEARL, AND PEARL. The oursin has carried the genius of defence to its utmost limit. His cuirass, or, preferably, his fortress of pieces, is at once movable and resisting, yet sensitive, retractile, and capable of being repaired in case of accident; this fortress is fast-joined and anchored to the rock, and still farther lodged within a hollow of the rock, so that the enemy has no means of attacking the citadel;--it is a system of defence so perfect that it can never be surpassed. No shell is comparable to it; far less are any of the works of human industry. The oursin is the completion of the starred and circular creatures; in him they have their highest and most triumphant development. The circle has few variations; it is the absolute form; in the globe of the oursin, at once so simple and so complicated, is the perfection and completion of the first world. The beauty of the world next to come, will be the harmony of double forms, their equilibrium, the gracefulness of their oscillation. From the molluscs even up to man, every being in this next world is to be made up of two corresponding halves; in every animal is to be found (far better than _unity_) _Union_. The master piece of the oursin had gone even beyond what was needed; that miracle of defence had made him prisoner; he was not only shut in but buried; he had dug his own grave. His perfection of isolation had banished him, deprived him of all connections, and of all possibility of progress.