PERILS OF THE OYSTER. 22Q 



repeatedly seen, it proceeds as follows : clasping the oyster 

 in its rays, it brings its mouth opposite the hinges. From 

 the mouth it pours a secretion which paralyses the hinge- 

 muscle, and causes the shell to open. It cannot, like a 

 dog whelk, extract its prey and put it into its stomach, so 

 it reverses the process, and puts its stomach into, or rather 

 over, the oyster, protruding the stomach from its mouth, 

 surrounding the oyster with its coats, digesting it, and then 

 withdrawing the stomach into its body. The wildest fancy 

 of Oriental legends never equalled in grotesque imagina- 

 tion this perfectly true history of the oyster and the star- 

 fish." 



But although the star- fish can, in this extraordinary 

 manner, manage to devour an oyster as bir as himself, it 



o j 



.must evidently be somewhat troublesome to him, for he 

 prefers to attack oyster-beds covered with " spat," "brood," 

 or " half-ware " that is, oysters from one to three years 

 of age whose shells are not so hard and whose flesh is 

 more delicate and pleasing to the echinodermal stomach. 



Star-fish will also feed on mussels, which themselves 

 destroy oysters by smothering them, and on whelk-tingles, 

 dead crabs, barnacles, &c. ; " so that after all they may do 

 some good, as a certain amount of vermin in a game pre- 

 serve is anything but injurious to the welfare of the whole 

 population ; the vermin keep up the balance of nature by 

 destroying and eating the sick and weakly animals, which 

 might otherwise die a lingering death." 



But it is not every species of star-fish that is accounted 

 guilty of oyster destruction ; of these are, notably, the sun- 

 star (Solaster papposa), the sand-star (Ophiura), and the 

 brittle-star (Ophiocoma), all which are so well known to 

 every dredger. The next on the list of the oyster's ene- 



