CHAPTER XIV 

 The Comatula, or Rosy Feather Star 



WHEN spending a holiday at the seaside, you 

 will have the opportunity of finding num- 

 bers of the lovely objects which live in the water 

 near the shore : tiny starfishes, sufficiently small to 

 crawl about on the nail of your little finger ; very 

 small sea-urchins, much smaller than an ordinary- 

 sized marble ; little sea-anemones, and small creatures 

 that you may mistake for starfishes, but which have 

 eight arms, and may be called sea-spiders. By 

 careful searching on some coasts, you may be 

 rewarded by finding the little rosy feather star. If 

 you have a microscope, there will be hosts of things 

 awaiting your attention, such as Bowerbankia, a most 

 charming creature that receives its name from the 

 fact that the late Dr. Bowerbank was the first to draw 

 special attention to it. Then there are various kinds 

 of sertularians that are frequently passed over as 

 seaweeds, but which are colonies of intensely attrac- 

 tive forms of life, also the spirorbis, whose tiny 

 white shells are attached in multitudes to the seaweeds 

 proper. 



