SPITZBERGEN AND GREENLAND. 95 



but if he is turned he looketh neatly ; and in this posture is 

 seen in the middle a five-corner'd plain star, which I take to 

 be its mouth, which he can open and draw together like a 

 purse. Round about this star are small black spots in rows, 

 of the shape of a star. Further forwards, about the middle 

 star or his mouth, a broader one is, like unto the flower of 

 the crowsfoot. From the middle star proceed five legs or 

 arms, which have no knobs where they begin, but begin first 

 to have some behind the flower-like shaped star, on both 

 sides to the end. The knobs between the legs are soft to the 

 touch, like the skin of an egg ; their legs are scaly, about 

 three fingers' breadth long, broader at their beginning, where 

 they have knobs, and afterwards by degrees they grow nar- 

 rower. Between the scales on both sides the knobs come 

 out commonly three or four together, and look like warts. 

 When he swims in the water, he spreads out these knobs on 

 each side, just as a bird doth his feathers when it is going 

 to fly. 



Of the Second Starfish.^ 



Besides this, another fine starfish came to my hands, which 

 rather ought to be called the coralfish, because he is like 

 twigs of coral, for which I took them also, before I perceived 

 that he was alive. This is of a brighter colour than the 

 other, for the other is dark red. Its body hath ten corners, 

 and it hath a star above with as many rays ; each of these 

 one may compare unto a sail of the windmills that the chil- 

 dren run against the wind withall, or to a piece of such 

 crosses that are broad before, and narrow where they meet 

 together ; that is to say of the shape of a dovetail. It feeleth 

 rough : the lower part of the body is very neat ; in the mid- 

 dle thereof is a star with six points, which I take to be his 

 mouth. About the mouth he is soft, to the place where his 



^ Astrophjjtonarborescens ("The Medusa's Head"), the Asterias Ccqmt 

 Meduscc of Linnaeus, Sjst. Nat., i, 1101. 



