TWO YOUNG NATURALISTS. 29 



a little. Good ; there is the stomach. At first sight 

 it has the appearance of a transparent mass divided 

 into five equal parts; and yet I am not acquainted 

 with a gizzard of greater power than it. Last year 

 I had an opportunity of observing the devastation 

 committed on a bed of mussels by star-fishes. They had 

 settled on them by millions ; all the rocks were covered 

 with them, and from a little way off appeared quite 



STAB-FISH (Asterias). 



red. When an Asterias wanted its breakfast, it came 

 dragging along by the aid of its ambulacral feet and 

 rested its stomach on the hinge-joint of the shells of a 

 mussel. In a few minutes, by the action of the gastric 

 juices, the muscles of the hinge were dissolved, the 

 stomach penetrated between the shells of the mussel 

 and carried on there a suction so powerful that in a 

 brief time nothing remained of the mussel. The foot 

 itself, although so difficult to detach, shared the same 



