AMAZING COMPLEXITY OF STRUCTURE. 191 



cords is in the living animal terminated by a minute 

 yellowish fleshy ball something resembling a little 

 foot ; so that the whole creature, as it walks along, 

 resembles a conglomeration of serpents strangely 

 linked together, whence it has, not inappropriately, 

 received its mythological cognomen of Gorgono- 

 cephalus. 



These Star-fishes inhabit the deep parts of the sea, 

 and seem principally to frequent coral-beds, and 

 localities where marine plants are abundant, around 

 the stems of which they intertwine their arms, and 

 climb about in search of sustenance. 



It is rather difficult to imagine that so many thou- 

 sand pieces, so precise in form, and so artistically 

 conjoined, managed to put themselves together of 

 their own accord, without the counsel of superior 

 wisdom ; to become distributed thus widely, without 

 an agency more powerful than their own. And yet 

 these wonderful organisms have been repeated again 

 and again, age after age, in countless multitudes. 



Surely the Epicurean fool or atheist, who would 

 prate about the fortuitous concourse of atoms, or even 

 more modern dreamers about genera and species 

 formed by chance, had better look again at one of 

 these despised " Sea-baskets." 



