STARLET. 173 



There is a pretty little species abundant enough 

 hereabout, chiefly affecting shores on which numerous 

 angular masses of stone lie irregularly scattered and 

 heaped one on another. Yet they seem to have a pre- 

 dilection, for they do not occur in all our localities even 

 though these conditions be not lacking. Liverrnead Point, 

 and the south side of Anstey's Cove, beneath the cliffs, 

 are favourite spots for them, the former especially, where 

 we can find the little Gibbous Starlet, 1 for such is its 

 name, at all times of the year, when the tide is suffi- 

 ciently out. The retiring tide here leaves a shallow 

 pool of considerable area, which then continues to run 

 out by a narrow channel among the rock boulders, a 

 winding rivulet of salt water ; along whose borders, by 

 turning over the loose blocks, scores of this pretty Star 

 are exposed, clinging to the wet sides and roofs of the 

 dark passages by means of their sucker-feet. Forbes 

 has given two figures of the species, but manifestly 

 taken from dead specimens, and from very small ones 

 too. He says, " large specimens measure only an inch 

 across;" from which I infer that on the shores of the 

 Isle of Man, where he was familiar with it, the Starlet 

 does not attain the dimensions it reaches on our mild 

 southern coast. He indeed alludes to one in Mr. Ball's 

 collection, which measured one inch and five lines in 



1 Asterina giblosa, figured in the right-hand foreground of Plate XX. 



