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tubes, through which divers, kinds of shell-fish respire, 

 serve likewise for the same uses. Bat nature, who has 

 been so lavish in providing the star with legs, has been 

 also liberal in bestowing on it the organs of respiration; 

 she has even multiplied them in a greater degree. They 

 are very small conic tubes, disposed in knots, and pro- 

 duce an equal number of little water spouts. 



Amongst our stars, you observe there are some which 

 have only two or three rays: and by looking more nar- 

 rowly at them, you discover several very minute rays, 

 just beginning to shoot out. Are then animals, that are 

 formed by a repetition of such a great number of parts, 

 both outward and inward, Degenerated like polypuses, 

 whose structure appears so simple? Nothing is more 

 true; and the stars you are now looking at will afford 

 you proof of it. These animals often chance to lose 

 two or three of their rays, and they are no more affected 

 by this loss than polypuses are by parting with some of 

 their arms. We may mangle stars, orcut them in pieces, 

 but cannot destroy them by that method : they will re- 

 cover from their ruins, and each piece becomes a new 

 star. 



21. Sea-hedgehogs, like the land ones, derive their 

 names from their prickles. But those of the former are 

 quite different frbrn such as belong to the latter. 



The form of these hedge hogs is that of around but- 

 .ton: it is hollow within, and its surface is elaborately 

 wrought. We might compare the workmanship of 

 them to that of certain 'copper, or wire buttons. A 

 multitude of tubercles, like little triangles, divide the 

 whole surface of the button : these triangles are sepa- 

 rated by stripes, which are regularly spaced, pierced 

 with holes, and distributed with great symmetry in se- 

 veral lines. These holes pass through from one part to 

 another, the whole thickness of the skeleton ; for the 

 body of our hedge hogs is a kind of bone-box. Each 

 hole is a socket, wherein is a fieshy horn, like those x>t a 

 snail, and susceptible of the same motions: there arc 

 therefore, as many horns as holes, and there are reck- 



