The “Cotton-Spinner”

Abstract

ON seeing my article on this rare British Holothurian, Mrs. Fisher—who, as Miss Arabella B. Buckley, is well known to a large circle of readers—kindly sent me an account of her experience of the offensive use of the Cuvierian organs. She tells me that in the Bay of Rapallo at Santa Margherita, near Porto Fino, she dredged a large black Holothurian, and that “the tangled mass of white threads you mention is so sticky and in such quantity that, after having taken one of these animals out with my hand, I had considerable difficulty in freeing my fingers from the threads; indeed, my hand was not comfortable till I had washed it in hot water.” On the other hand, an inquiry made of a gentleman living at Penzance, and interested in Echinoderms, resulted in the answer that he had never heard of the “Cotton-Spinner.”