ON INSECTS AND MAEINE ANIMALS. 103 



done by these unwearying agents. Cleanliness 

 and health attend their operations, while each, 

 like a living granary, pours forth innumerable 

 eggs, and thus supplies abundant food for count- 

 less hungry mouths, peopling the sea with life, 

 and thus adding to the boundless store of nature's 

 provisions. 



I have said that fishermen have a great aver- 

 sion to all sorts of star-fish, or at least it was so 

 formerly, and perhaps is so at the present time. 

 Now these creatures have a wonderful power of 

 reproduction. If one of its arms, or, as they are 

 called, rays, and sometimes fingers, should be 

 taken off, another would come in its place ; and 

 in this way, if it is pulled in several pieces, each 

 piece will in time become a perfect star-fish. 

 This may surprise you, but it is a fact well 

 known to naturalists. Thus fishermen were 

 formerly in the habit of tearing them asunder 

 and committing their lacerated bodies to the 

 waves. This plan was anything but the way of 

 diminishing their numbers. You have probably 

 now become wiser, and are content with throwing 

 them on the beach and suffering them to die 

 there. 



Another interesting marine animal is the her- 



