THE ASTERIAS CAPUT MEDUSA. 281 



making- the animal appear like a flower in full bloom. It 

 is frequently found upon a rock, or twisted upon a coral. In 

 order to effect its capture, they touch them with a stick, 

 upon which they immediately adhere. When drawn out of 

 the water, they hang down loosely like a bundle of flax, and, 

 when put on a table to be examined, they contract them- 

 selves and become hard. The fragments of their rays 

 furnish the fossil entrachi. If we drown this creature in 

 spirits of wine, and keep the rays flat and expanded in the 

 execution, it is easy to extract, by means of a pair of forceps, 

 the stomach of the animal whole and entire through the 

 mouth. Respecting the difference between the large and 

 small species, the one has the claws less divided, and the 

 other them all forked. This species is found in the Indian 

 Ocean, at the Cape of Good Hope, in the Arctic Seas, and 

 near Archangel; it is said to be found of a prodigious size. 

 The CaspianSea, however, abounds with those of the largest 

 dimensions. This creature appears to form the medium by 

 which nature passes from naked worms to testaceous ani- 

 mals, and shell-fish in general.* 



Sir Arthur de Capell Brooke procured two which were 

 captured on the Norwegian coasts, and, as he saw no others, 

 he considered them as somewhat rare. He observes,+ that the 

 smallest- of them so exactly resembles the engraving of that 

 described by Pontoppidan, under the name of the arbo- 

 rescent or star-fish, that it would induce a man to form a 

 favourable idea of the general accuracy of the figures in his 

 work. The largest, when alive and expanded, must have 

 been of a considerable size, was drawn up by the nets of the 

 fishermen ; and the merchant, Mr. Buck, in whose posses- 

 sion it was, and who had hung it up in his house as a curiosity, 

 was kind enough to let him have it. With regard to its 

 habits, food, and other particulars relating to this singular 

 animal, hardly any thing is known ; nor are we assisted in 



* Wilke's London Encyclopedia, vol. ii. p, 801. 



t Travels in Sweden, Norway, and Finmark, p. 326» 



