COMMON CKOSSFISH. 89 



under their feet, or throw upon the shore, a fish which 

 they call Five-finger, resembling a spur-rowel, because that 

 fish gets into the oysters when they gape and sucks them 

 out."" Dr. J. L. Drummond of Belfast favours me with 

 the following note on their Irish denomination. " The 

 Starfishes are called at Bangor (county Down) the DevWs 

 fingers, and the DevWs hands, and the children have a 

 superstitious dread of touching them. When drying some 

 in the little garden behind my lodgings, I heard some of 

 them on the other side of the hedge put the following 

 queries. ' What's the gentleman doing with the bad man's 

 hand \ Is he ganging to eat the bad man's hands, do ye 

 think V " 



On the east and south coasts the Crossfishes are used 

 for manure in large quantities ; and Lamarck tells us that 

 they serve the same purpose on the coasts of France, 

 where the species under consideration is equally abundant 

 as in Britain. A gardener told me that he would desire 

 no richer manure than Starfishes for his garden. 



Common as this species is, its history has been involved 

 in sad confusion as regards synonyms. Of the older 

 authors it is certainly the Asterias rubens, and Otho Fabri- 

 cius describes it with his accustomed accuracy under that 

 name. The Asterias rubens of Dr. Fleming appears to be 

 strangely compounded of this and Solaster endeca. Dr. 

 Johnston described the Luidia fragillissima under the 

 same name ; and in the new edition of Lamarck, by some 

 oversight, his description is referred to among the syno- 

 nyms of the true rubens. Blainville's references are cor- 

 rect, as also those given by Stewart in his " Elements of 

 Natural History." Link gives many characteristic figures 

 of it, one of which is from a British specimen, called by 

 Luid " Lutea vulgaris." Baster figures it, and tells us that 



