OS) 



0PIIIUR.E. 



time to make the contraction necessary to break off their 

 rays. Allow them to lie in fresh water for twenty-four 

 hours, when they are to be displayed on white paper, and 

 dried very slowly before the fire." I would recommend 

 another mode which saves time, and is more convenient 

 to the traveller. It is this : drop the Sand or Brittle star 

 as soon as possible into fresh water, let it lie there for an 

 hour or so, and then dip it for a moment in boiling water ; 

 it is then to be dried in the sun or in a current of air, 

 which will be effected in a very short time, and packed 

 in paper. By such a simple process as many specimens as 

 the collector pleases may be dried and put away in a 

 couple of hours. The fresh water acts as a poison on the 

 Ophiurse, as well as on most other marine animals, and 

 kills them instantaneously. Mr. F. H. N. Glossop notices 

 its effects on the Starfishes generally, in the ninth volume 

 of the Magazine of Natural History. 



The Gray Brittle-star is a little species, having very 

 much the aspect of a Sand-star, and constitutes with some 

 allied forms a connecting link between the two genera. 

 They cannot, however, be confounded, as the origins of 

 the rays, whether extended into the disk above, or inserted 

 entirely beneath, at once show whether the creature before 

 us is an Ophiura or an Ophiocoma, independent of the 

 other characters. Its body which rarely exceeds two- 

 tenths of an inch in breadth, and is seldom so large, is 

 circular and flat, imbricated above with small smooth 

 scales which are rosulated in the centre. Opposite the 

 origin of each ray are two oblong narrow plates, the inner 

 margins of which touch throughout their lengths. The 

 scales between the inferior origins of the rays are small 

 and pentangular. The rays, which are generally a little 

 more than three times as lony as the breadth of the 



