HOMES UNDER THE SEA. 

 CHAPTEE III. 



SEA STARS OR STARFISHES. 



TT7E have seen how the soft body of the snail or 

 slug can be converted into a terrible instrument 

 of destruction in the previous chapters. 



We shall also see how the fragile bodies of the jelly- 

 fishes can overpower the strongest man, and that their 

 fibres, not thicker than the threads of a spider's web, and 

 even more easily broken, bear within their almost 

 invisible filaments a poison apparatus which is as deadly 

 as the fang of the rattlesnake. 



The creatures are gifted with these structures for the 

 purpose of enabling them to obtain food, and indeed, 

 if we look to the details of any living being, we shall 

 see that most of them are subordinated to that object. 



