210 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



In confinement these creatures are almost in- 

 variably subject to frightful mutilations. Not only do 

 they lose large portions of their body, or even entire 

 rays, but the whole animal sometimes literally falls to 

 pieces ; nay, although to-day you may possess a com- 

 plete and beautiful specimen, which has behaved itself 

 in a manner perfectly correct and satisfactory, there 

 is no saying but that to-morrow morning you will 

 find nothing left of it but a heap of fragments di- 

 spersed through the water. This kind of suicide is a 

 casualty apparently incidental to the whole race, and 

 with some species, amongst which Luidia fragi- 

 lissima stands pre-eminently conspicuous, it is so 

 generally put in practice, and that upon the slightest 

 occasions, that to procure one in an entire state is 

 almost impossible. 



Prof. E. Forbes, often baffled by this suicidal habit, 

 upon one occasion was induced to take special pre- 

 cautions against it ; he accordingly provided a bucket 

 of fresh water to receive and kill instantaneously any 

 that might be caught by the dredge, and a very 

 amusing account he gives of the ill-success of the 

 experiment. " As I expected, a Luidia came up a 

 gorgeous specimen. As it does not generally break 

 up before it is raised above the surface of the sea, 

 cautiously and anxiously I sank my bucket to a level 

 with the dredge's mouth, and proceeded, in the most 

 gentle manner, to introduce Luidia to the purer ele- 

 ment. Whether the cold element was too much for 

 him, or the sight of the bucket too terrific, I know 

 not, but in a moment he proceeded to dissolve his 

 corporation, and at every mesh of the dredge his frag- 



