There is just one more thing that I must tell you about these very curious creatures, and that is that they are very fond of covering themselves all over with small stones, and little bits of broken shell, and tiny pieces of sea-weed, in order that they may not be noticed. They do this in a very odd way. I told you that they have numbers of little sucker-feet, which they poke out through tiny holes in their shells when they are required for use, just as the starfishes do. Well, when they want to disguise themselves, they just push out two or three hundred of these slender sucker-feet between their spines, and take firm hold with them of any small objects that may be lying within reach. In this manner they soon succeed in covering themselves all over, and you might easily look at one of them as it lay at the bottom of a rock-pool without recognising it at all. CHAPTER VIII SEA CUCUMBERS AND JELLYFISHES PLATE XXXIX THE SEA CUCUMBER (1) If you grope about in the dark nooks and corners of a rock-pool, quite close down to the water’s edge, when the tide is out, you may perhaps find a curious little creature which looks rather like a greyish-white cucumber, with an odd feathery tuft at one end of its body. This is a Sea Cucumber, or Sea Gherkin, and is chiefly remarkable because it seems to suffer very much at times from eating something which does not agree with it. Then it cures itself in a very odd way indeed. It gets rid of almost all the inside of its body, reducing itself to very little more than an empty bag of skin, with just a little tuft at one end! It throws off its teeth, it throws off the lining of its throat, it throws off all its digestive organs. You would think that it would kill itself by doing this, wouldn’t you? But it does not. And before very long new teeth, a new throat lining, and new digestive organs grow in the place of the old ones, so that in a few weeks’ time the animal is just as perfect as it was before! [Illustration: PLATE XXXIX 1. SEA CUCUMBER. 2. THE COMMON JELLYFISH.] It seems rather hard to believe that an animal can treat itself in such a manner as this, and yet continue to live, doesn’t it? But remember that “truth is stranger than fiction,” and that some of the strangest animals of all are found among those which live in the sea. PLATE XXXIX JELLYFISHES (2)