THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 167 
central row of tanks at the Zvological Gardens : great 
twisted masses of Serpule,! those white tubes of 
stone, from the mouth of which protrude pairs of 
rose-coloured or orange fans, flashing in, quick as 
light, the moment that your finger approaches them 
or your shadow crosses the water. 
You will dredge, too, the twelve-rayed sun-star 
(Solaster papposa), with his rich scarlet armour; and 
more strange, and quite as beautiful, the bird’s foot 
star (Palmipes membranaceus), which you may see 
. crawling by its thousand sucking-feet in the Crystal 
Palace tanks, a pentagonal webbed bird’s foot, of 
scarlet and orange shagreen. With him, most pro- 
bably, will be a specimen of the great purple 
heart-urchin (Spatangus purpureus), clothed in pale 
lilac horny spines, and other Echinoderms, for which 
you must consult Forbes’s “British Star-fishes :” 
but perhaps the species among them which will 
interest you most, will be the common brittle-star 
(Ophiocoma rosula), of which a hundred or so, I can - 
promise, shall come up at a single haul of the dredge, 
1 Plate X. fig. 1. 
