32 ON SOME SPECIES OF ASTEIUAS 



we cannot expect to find living proofs of it in the present in- 

 cipient stage of the formation itself In the mean time the 

 existence of creatures, as the Podura nivalis, which are ma- 

 tured by the influence of snow, and can only enjoy their lives 

 on that substance, will justify the conclusion that a continu- 

 ous surface, foimed chiefly of ice and snow, does not exclude 

 animal life. 



But if we must admit the Flora of the snow-formation to 

 exist by dint of spontaneous generation, it is but rational to 

 conclude that the higher creatures, to whose purposes that 

 Flora will, without doubt, be at some time subservient, will 

 not be created by direct supernatural intervention ; and al- 

 though it may never be given to man to point out clearly how 

 the natural powers, through which the Almighty manifests 

 Himself to him, have operated or shall operate in creating 

 animals, yet any unprejudiced mind may clearly discern that 

 by cutting the knot in the customary manner, we can never 

 hope to arrive at anything like a fair solution of the question. 



Weimar, 1839. 



Art. VI. — Remarks on some species of Asienais fou7id in Cornwall, 

 By Jonathan Couch, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 



I HAVE the pleasure of forwarding for insertion in the Maga- 

 zine of Natural History, a notice of some of the less known 

 species of British star-fish, of the first of which Dr. Fleming 

 complains of the want of a figure and description. These 

 might have been supplied before now, if naturalists, living in 

 some of our larger ports, where the trawl-fishery is chiefly 

 followed, had examined the various matters torn from the bot- 

 tom by that mode of fishing. I have no opportunities of this 

 sort, and am chiefly indebted to accident for the possession 

 of the specimen here described. 



Prickly Star-fish. Asterias spinosa. Flem. Br. An. p. 487. 



The diameter of this specimen, across the disk and rays, 

 was thirty-three inches ; but the five rays were not of equal 

 length, the longest being fourteen inches. Across the disk, 

 in one direction, the diameter was three and a half inches, in 

 another, three inches ; the disk depressed, although this may 

 be only casual. The rays, at their origin, were two inches 

 wide, tapering, depressed, flaccid ; their spines stout, and 

 each surrounded by a tuft of fine suckers. Two of the rays 

 have a double row of spines along the middle, divided by a 



