ECHINODEKMATA. 269 



Mysteries of Nature, who can sound your depths ? Secrets of the 

 moral world, what heing but God has the privilege of comprehending 

 you? A large species of Star-fish (Luidia fragillissima), which 

 inhabits the English seas, has this instinct of suicide to a great extent. 

 The following account by Professor Edward Forbes of an attempt to 

 capture a Luidia gives a good illustration of its powers. " The first 

 time that I took one of these creatures," the professor says, " I suc- 

 ceeded in placing it entire in my boat. Not having seen one before, 

 and being ignorant of its suicidal powers, I spread it out on a rowing 

 bench, the better to admire its form and colours. On attempting to 

 remove it for preservation, to my horror and disappointment I found 

 only an assemblage of detached members. My conservative endea- 

 vours were all neutralised by its destructive exertions ; and the animal 

 is now badly represented in my cabinet by a diskless arm and an arm- 

 less disk. Next time I went to dredge at the same spot I determined 

 not to be cheated out of my specimen a second time. I carried with 

 me a bucket of fresh water, for which the star-fishes evince a great 

 antipathy. As I hoped, a Luidia soon came up in the dredge a most 

 gorgeous specimen. As the animal does not generally break up until 

 it is raised to the surface of the sea, I carefully and anxiously plunged 

 my bucket to a level with the dredge's mouth, and softly introduced 

 the Luidia into the fresh water. Whether the cold was too much for 

 it, or the sight of the bucket was too terrific, I do not know ; but 

 in a moment it began to dissolve its corporation, and I saw its limbs 

 escaping through every mesh of the dredge. In my despair I seized 

 the largest piece, and brought up the extremity of an arm with its 

 terminal eye, the spinous eyelid of which opened and closed with 

 something exceedingly like a wink of derision." 



The mind remains confounded before such spectacles, and we can 

 only say, with Mallebranche, " It is well to comprehend clearly that 

 there are some things which are absolutely incomprehensible." 



This is doubtless the reason that in collections of natural history 

 we rarely find star-fishes, and especially the Luidia, entire ; the 

 moment the animal is seized by fisherman or amateur, in its terror or 

 despair it breaks itself up into small fragments. To preserve them 

 whole they must be killed suddenly, before they have time to be aware 

 of their danger. For this purpose, the moment they are drawn from 

 the sea they must be plunged into a vase of cold fresh water ; this saltless 



