STARFISHES. 67 



mode of showing its disgust at the contretemps which 

 has beset it this morning ; but, all the same, this pro- 

 trusion of the stomach may be the result of a habit of 

 the animal. If you were to ask any of the fishermen 

 who, as becomes the ways of nautical persons, are 

 promenading up and down in a kind of set groove on 

 the pier, and exchanging monosyllabic ideas with their 

 neighbours between their frequent glances seawards 

 what the starfish does with its stomach, you would be 

 provided with a speedy reply. They would tell you 

 that the sea-stars are enemies of the oyster-beds, and 

 may add that they kill more oysters than mankind 

 consumes. 



Hence, whenever a starfish is found in the dredge, 

 it is ruthlessly torn in pieces and flung overboard as 

 a just recompense for its predatory habits. How far 

 the fishermen's views of starfish guilt are justified I 

 scarcely know; but I should say their opinions are 

 not without warrant. You may often pick up a star- 

 fish on the beach which has its arms coiled up until 

 it has come to resemble a living ball, like its neigh- 

 bour the sea-urchin. 



Disentangling the starfish and its arms, you find it 

 has been embracing a whelk, and, as you liberate the 

 shell-fish from the grasp of the star, you draw forth 

 from the shell the stomach of the starfish. It has 

 been slowly sucking out of the shell the substance of 

 its living tenant, and that it preys upon its molluscan 

 neighbours is, therefore, matter of certainty. Whether 

 it can attack the oyster is, however, quite a different 

 matter. That mollusc is as secure within its shell as 

 a baron of old in his fortified citadel. By closing its 

 shell, it can certainly entrench itself in a fashion which 

 no starfish can readily break through. 



