226 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



ing the strange name of " Devil's-fingers." As Dr. Drum- 

 mond was drying some in his garden, at Bangor, in the 

 county of Down, he heard some children on the other side 

 of the hedge exclaim, " What is the gentleman ganging to 

 do with the bad man's hands ? Is he ganging to eat the 

 bad man's hands, do you think ?" 



Now such a superstition is not surprising, when no 

 less a person than Hippocrates, and some of his successors, 

 considered sea-stars to be a cure for hysteria and epilepsy, 

 when taken in a decoction of brassica and sweet wine. 

 But it would be difficult, if not impossible, to establish the 

 stinging power of these creatures. Certain it is, that Pro- 

 fessor E. Forbes declares that he has handled thousands of 

 them without suffering the slightest irritation of the skin ; 

 and in this experience that of every naturalist we have 

 known or heard of fully coincides, (//) 



The star-fishes are animals without vertebrae : they are 

 generally flattened and pentagonal, the branches being 

 nearly equal to each other and arranged symmetrically as 

 rays. These rays are more or less triangular, and are 

 invariably five in number. Their ordinary figure excited 

 the inquiry of Sir Thomas Brown :- 



" Why, among sea-stars, nature chiefly delighteth in five 

 points ?" And again : "By the same number (five) doth 

 nature divide the circle of the sea-star, and in that order 

 and number disposeth those elegant semicircles or dental 

 sockets and eggs in the sea-hedge-hog." 



Without indulging in such curious speculations, the 

 reader will find abundant materials of interest in the exami- 

 nation of a sea-star. But, perhaps, the best answer that 



(d) " Silver-Shell ; or, The Adventures of an Oyster," p. 129. 



