44 LIVING CREATURES. 



swimmers will stick to a stone or to a piece of wood 

 or crockery. Forty of them will cleave to one oyster 

 shell. When they are as large as a quarter of a dollar 

 they are termed "seeds" or "blisters." 



They may now be raked up and carried to empty 

 beds where they are scattered at the rate of a bushel 

 to about forty square feet. Here they grow for four 

 or five years, when they are ready for market. 



9. OYSTER-CATCHING. 



OYSTERS are caught by a bird called the oyster 

 catcher, by star-fish, soft crabs, drill-fish, and conchs. 

 All these plunder for their own benefit. Some of 

 them, as the star-fish, are very troublesome to the 

 growing beds, and the oystermen are accustomed, at 

 certain times of the year, to rake over the bed and 

 capture a multitude of these enemies. 



Leaving all the remaining enemies mentioned to be 

 looked up in the Cyclopaedia, let us attend to one of 

 them, and see how a little sound knowledge is useful 

 in any kind of business. The star-fish, which belongs 

 to a lower branch of animals than the oyster, has its 

 mouth in the center from which the five arms radiate. 

 The arms are made of limestone sections joined by a 

 tough membrane, so that they can bend and grasp the 

 prey. They are also covered with sharp spines, and 

 on this account are not themselves a pleasant prey 

 for other animals. 



The star-fish moves by filling ever so many little 



