iYS Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



and clinging together by their rays. In the centre of each of these 

 balls was a full-grown specimen of Maclra stultoriim. The asteriae 

 were arranged along the edge of tlie valves, which were always se- 

 parated to the distance of two or three lines; they were applied to 

 them by their lower surface. On detacliing them from the shell, 

 it was remarked, that they had introduced between its valves, lai-ge 

 round vesicles, with very thin walls, and filled with a transparent 

 fluid. Each asterias presented five pendent vesicles, arranged sym- 

 metrically about the mouth. These vesicles were of unequal size : 

 two of them were commonly larger, and about the size of a very 

 large hazle-nut ; the other three were not larger than a pea. They 

 appear to be connected with the animal by a very short and narrow 

 peduncle. At the other extremity was a round open hole, through 

 which the fluid, contained in the vesicle, flowed gently, and drop by 

 drop. The walls of these vesicles were very thin; the upper half, 

 however, was thicker than the other, and longitudinally wrinkled. 

 At the end of a few seconds, ti.e vesicles, having contracted and 

 discharged their contents, were scarcely larger than a grain of or- 

 dinary shot. When the sea had left the asteriae some moments dry, 

 they quitted the animal which they were in the act of sucking, and 

 immediately after, the place of the vesicles could no longer be di- 

 stinguished. The shells, that had been seized upon by these ani- 

 mals, were found in various states of destruction ; some so far gone 

 as to have only the adductor muscles remaining; but all of them 

 had lost the faculty of closing their valves, and appeared to be dead. 

 If testacea be the ordinary food of the asteriae, an enormous quan- 

 tity of them must be destroyed, if we may judge by the number of 

 these animals. M. Deslongchamps inclines to the opinion that the 

 asteriae attack the mactrae while the latter are still alive, and that, 

 probably, by means of some fluid, capable of producing torpor, they 

 force them to open their shells, and thus allow the introduction of 

 the singular bodies described, and which act as suckers. He is the 

 more inclined to think so, as none of the mactrae, which he ex- 

 amined, had the least smell, or presented any other indication of 

 having been dead for any time. It must, however, be remembered, 

 that bivalve shells of this, or any other analogous species, tossed 

 about by the waves, are no longer in their natural state, but have 

 been raised from their native haunts under the sand, either by bois- 

 terous weather, or after intense frost, by even a scarcely more than 

 ordinarily troubled state of the sea. Shells in this state are frequently 

 observed on our shores. In some the animals are dead, in others so 

 much weakened, as to be unable to close their shells, while others 

 may, at least after gales, be for a time apparently as sound as ever. 

 Now, it is more than probable, that the asteriae could only attack 

 those which were absolutely dead or dying, and from which the 

 insertion of their suckers could experience no opposition; for it 

 would be impossible for them to insinuate even a pretty solid sub- 

 stance, much less a mere vesicle, between the closed valves of a 

 living shell ; and, on the other hand, how should the asteriae con- 

 trive to make the shell of a vigorous animal open, in order to let 

 them throw in their imagined torporiferous fluid ?~/^2'rf. 



