156 THE WORLD OF THE SEA. 
and more or less like a star; the rays grow out at the angles, and 
the animal is complete. 
The flesh of the star-fish is considered poisonous. 
Star-fishes are capable, with wonderful facility, of reproducing 
any part of which they have been deprived. The individual which 
loses one or more arms gradually produces others in every respect 
similar to those which it once had. At first these new members 
A STAR-FISH IN THE PROCESS OF PRODUCING ITS RAYS, 
are small, and in this state there is a necessary aberration from 
the figure of a star. There is in the Indian Ocean a species 
which often has four small arms upon the extremity of the fifth ; 
these are new productions in course of development. In this 
case the star takes the appearance of a comet. 
Sir John Dalyell, on the roth of June, took a ray of a star-fish 
which had been cut off. It then exhibited no signs of repro- 
duction; but on the 15th the rudiments of the other four rays 
showed themselves as little protuberances. At night one of them 
