with man. To the slow moving starfish which has neither 

 the intelligence of man, or the agility of the fly in securing 

 food, is given a digestant of sufficient strength to digest its 

 living food outside its own body. 



Where food is alive it is more resistant to the action of 

 digestants, yet the rapidity with which a starfish devours a 

 mollusk is astounding. Frequently within two hours from 

 the time when the starfish begins his pull on the valves of a 

 mollusk, the empty shell is cast aside. This food, which in 

 the beginning was alive, is digested external to the body 

 of the starfish and external to the body of living victim, 

 and is absorbed by the starfish in considerably less than two 

 hours. Located in the rays of the starfish are a large num- 

 ber of glands that secrete this fiuid digestant, whence it is 

 conveyed to the stomach. Within the realms of medicine 

 there is no known digestant with any degree of potency 

 compared with that secreted and used by the humble starfish, 

 which if it could be isolated and extracted in sufficient 

 quantity, the possibilities for its use in medicine would be 

 large, in fact would establish a new industry, would greatly 

 lesson the menace to the mollusk fisheries, and at the same 

 time furnish a new means of earning a livlihood to the fish- 

 ermen. 



If each of our members will secure one application for 

 membership, or a subscription for The Maine Naturalist, 

 this journal will be placed on a self-supporting basis. We 

 want the name and address of every nature teacher, and 

 nature lover in Maine, that we may send them literature in 

 relation to the Knox Academy and its publications. 



Will our members kindly bear in mind that we are try- 

 ing to get together as complete collections as possible in 

 every branch of Maine Natural history for the use of special 

 students and summer classes, as soon as our museum build- 

 ing is completed, which we hope will be next summer. We 

 are pleased to acknowledge the receipt of a fine lot of her- 

 barium plants from Mr. John C. Parlin of Kennebec County 

 and some very rare dried plants from Mr. Long, collected 

 by him on Matinicus Island — N. W. Lermond, Curator. 



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