38 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



Britain and Ireland ! " This is a local story, at least ; 

 if true, I opine that clergyman, like the Kilbarchan 

 weaver, must have prayed that he "micht have a 

 gude conceit o' himsel'." And his prayer, doubtless, 

 was abundantly answered. 



You ask what is Lamlash famous for, and I reply, 

 its bay ; and its bay is in turn noted as being one of 

 the settlements of a certain interesting member of the 

 starfish group. Do you see that broken starfish which 

 has been tossed up on the seaweed at our feet ? Look 

 at it attentively for a moment, and I will tell you the 

 story of the Lamlash starfish. This fragment of star- 

 fish life which has been cast up at Toward is a 

 " Brittle-Star." 



It gets its name from the fact that it has a habit 

 erf parting as easily with its rays or arms as some 

 people have of parting with their promises. Its body, 

 you observe, is composed of a central part or disc, and 

 the arms are mere appendages to this disc. This is 

 very different from the case of the common starfish 

 we dissected some weeks ago. There, the arms were 

 part and parcel of the body, and the stomach and 

 other organs ran into the rays, on the under-side of 

 which you saw the hundreds of tube-feet. Here, in our 

 brittle-star, the body is really represented by the central 

 part, and the arms do not contain any prolongations 

 of the organs or belongings of the body. Now, this 

 brittle-star, like the sand-stars, finds itself placed in 

 a class of its own, on account of these and other 

 peculiarities of structure ; and such a proceeding is 

 as justifiable in its way as that which puts a snail in 

 one division of the Gasteropod class, and a limpet in 

 another. 



Yet another kind of starfish, however, was known 



