SAND-STARS AND STAR-FISHES. 



193 



beach. It is variable in color, but beautifully spotted with 

 pale and brown, its general hue being a brick-red. Am- 

 pMura squamata Sars has long slender arms and is 

 white ; it lives below tide-marks. The basket-fish, me- 

 dusa's head, or Astrophyton 

 Agassizii Stni., is of large 

 size, the disk being two in- 

 ches across, and the arms 

 subdividing into a great 

 number of tendril-like 

 branches. It lives from ten 

 to one hundred fathoms in 

 the Gulf of Maine. 



Ophiurans are widely dis- 

 tributed, and live at depths 

 between low- water mark and 

 two thousand fathoms. Fos- 

 sil Ophiurans do not occur 

 in formations older than the Upper Silurian, where they are 

 represented by the genera Protaster, Palceodiscus, Acroura, 

 and Eucladia ; genuine forms closely like those now living 

 appear in the mnschelkalk beds of Europe (Middle Trias). 



Order 2. Asteridea. In the true star-fishes the arms are 

 direct prolongations of the disk, and the stomach and 



~F\^.\?^. OphwpholisbeUls, common Sand- 

 star. After Morse. 



Fig. 136. -Three forms of Star-fish, A, B, C, *n from above, bhowma the different 

 development of the ambulacra! and iulerambulacra] areas. The ambulacra are iudi 

 ;ated by rows of dots ; o, mouth; r, arms; ii\ iuterradial or intemmbuiacral aivu.- 

 V Pterasttr; B, Goniodiscus; A, Ast&iscus.Attei Gegenbaur. 



ovaries or spermaries pi-oject into them, and there is a deep 

 ambulacral furrow, while the interambulacral spaces vary 

 much in development (Fig. 136); the feet are provided with 



