stars in the aquarium now needs modification. The 

 literal truth is that there were not fewer than a mil- 

 lion. Not many hours before, I discovered that my 

 animals had been spawning. The eggs had now 

 just hatched, and the faint cloudiness is the swarm- 

 ing mass of microscopic larvae drawn, by what 

 force I know not, toward the brilliant beam of my 

 electric light. 



No microscope is necessary, however, to tell me 

 what the individual units look like. The pluteus 

 larva of the serpent-star is long familiar to me as a 

 strange figure in reference books, delineated in pic- 

 tures as a transparent pyramidal mote entirely un- 

 like its parents, and in the text as a swimmer at 

 the surface of the sea with the aid of innumerable 

 vibrating hair-like processes which cover its ex- 

 terior. 



Nevertheless, I know that many hours at the 

 microscope are now ahead of me. I know that I 

 shall pore over it with the wonder of one who has 

 never seen its likeness actually or in print; I know 

 that I shall not remain content until it has told me 

 its own story of changing shape and development 

 preceding the attainment of its adult form . . . 

 And I know, too, that after all this has been done, 



[76] 



