328 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
CHE xa. 
ECHINODERMATA. 
STAR-FISHES, SEA-URCHINS, AND SEA-CUCUMBERS. 
The Star-Fishes —Their Feet or Suckers.—Voracity of the Asterias—The Rosy 
Feather-Star.—Brittle and Sand-Stars.—The real Sea-Stars of the British Waters, 
—The Sea-Urchins. —The Pedicellarize.—The Shell and the Dental Apparatus 
of the Sea-Urchin.— The Sea-Cucumbers—Their strange Dismemberments.— 
Trepang-fishing on the Coast of North Australia.—In the Feejee Islands. 
“ As there are stars in the sky, so are there stars in the sea,” is 
the poetical exordium of Link’s treatise on Star-fishes, the first 
ever published on the subject ; and James Montgomery tells us in 
rather bombastic style, that the seas are strewn with the images 
of the constellations with which the heavens are thronged. 
This is no doubt highly complimentary to the star-fishes, but 
is far from being merited by any particularly shining or radiant 
quality ; as they occupy a very inferior grade among the deni- 
zens of the sea,and merely owe their stellar name to their form, 
which somewhat resembles the popular notion of a star. 
But if they are of an inferior rank to most marine animals; 
if even the stupid oyster boasts of a heart, which they do not 
possess; yet a closer inspection of their organisation shows us 
many wonderful peculiarities, and proves to us once more that 
nature has impressed the stamp of perfection as well upon her 
lowest and most simple creations, as upon those beings that rank 
highest in the scale of life. : 
Every one knows the common Star-fish, with its lanceolate 
arms; its generally orange-coloured hack, thickly set with tu- 
bercles, and the pale under-surface, with its rows of feet, feelers, 
or suckers, which serve both for locomotion and the seizure of 
food. 
When one of these creatures is placed on its back, in a plate 
filled with sea-water, it is exceedingly curious to watch the 
activity which those numberless sucking feet display. At first 
