422 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. * [aNNO I67O. 



Whilst they are very small, and first growing, many of them are within one of 

 the concave receptacles of these matrices. 



There is besides a strange kind of fish, which was taken by a fisherman, when 

 he was fishing for cods in the sea which is without Massachusets Bay in New 

 England. It was taken alive by a hook. The name of it I know not ;* nor can 

 I write more particularly of it, because I could not yet speak with the fisherman 

 who brought it from sea. I have not seen the like. The mouth is in the 

 middle ; and they say, that all the arms you see round about, were in motion 

 when it was first taken. 



We omit the other particulars here, that we may reflect a little on this ela- 

 borate piece of nature. The fish, as it is yet nameless, we may call Piscis Echino- 

 stellaris Visciformis; its body resembling an echinus or egg-fish, the main 

 branches, a star, and the dividing of the branches, the plant missletoe. See 

 fig. 1, pi. xi. This fish spreads itself from a pentagonal root, which encom- 

 passes the mouth, being in the middle at a, into five main limbs or branches, 

 each of which, just at the issuing out from the body, subdivides itself into two 

 (as at 1) and each of those 10 branches do again (at l) divide into two parts, 

 making 20 lesser branches: each of which again (at 3) divide into 2 smaller 

 branches, making in all 40. These again (at 4) into 80 ; and those (at 5) into 

 l60; and these (at 6) into 320; these (at 7) into 640; at 8, into 1280; at 

 9, into 2560; at 10, into 5120; at 11, into 10240; at 12, into 20480; at 13, 

 into 40960 ; at 14, into 8I92O; beyond which, the farther expanding of the 

 fish could not be certainly traced, though possibly each of those 8I920 small 

 sprouts or threads, in which the branches of this fish seemed to terminate, 

 might, if it could have been examined when living, have been found to subdivide 

 yet farther. The branches between the joints were not equally of a length, 

 though for the most part pretty near ; but those branches, which were on that 

 side of the joint on which the preceding joint was placed, were always about a 

 fourth or fifth part longer than those on the other side. Every one of these 

 branchings seemed to have, from the very mouth to the smallest twigs or 

 threads in which it ended, a double chain or rank of pores, as appears by the 

 figure. The body of the fish was on the other side; and seemed to have been 

 protuberant, much like an echinus (egg-fish or button-fish) and, like that, di- 

 vided into five ribs or ridges, and each of these seemed to be kept out by two 

 small bony ribs. 



In the figure is represented fully, and at length, only one of the main branches, 

 whence it is easy to imagine the rest, cut oiF at the fourth subdividing branch, 



^ The animal here described is improperly termed a fish; it belongs to the tribe of vermes in mo- 

 dem natural history, and is the asterias caput medusae of Linnaeus. 



