STAR-FISHES. 



of the sea, and seem particularly to frequent coral-beds and localities where 

 marine plants are abundant, around which they wind their arms, and thus 

 crawl about in search of sustenance. . The intertwined assemblage of their 

 living tendrils forms a sort of net, in which small animals are entangled and 

 dragged towards the mouth. " This elaborate piece of Nature/' says its first 

 describer, " has its body resembling an Echinus, or Egg-fish, the main branches? 

 a star, and the dividing of the branches, the plant misteltoe. It spreads itseK 

 from a pentagonal root into five main limbs or branches, each of which, just 

 at the issuing out from the body, divides itself into two, and each of the ten 

 branches thus formed, does again divide into two parts, making twenty lesser 

 branches, and each of these doth again divide, making in all forty. These 

 again divide into eighty, and these into 160, and they again into 320. The 

 division is again repeated, making 640, afterwards 1,280, 5,120, 10,240, 20,480, 

 40,960, and at the fourteenth division, beyond which the further expansion 

 could not be distinctly traced, there were 81,920 small tendrils or threads, in 

 which the branches of this star-fish terminate/'' 



\Vc next arrive at a group called 



FIG. 45. BRITTLE-STAR. 



FIG. 46. SUN-STAR (SOLASTER FAPPOSA). 



Snake-tailed Star-fishes (Ophinrida}* one of which is represented at 

 Fig. 44, 4. The rays are no longer divided into branches, but are, nevertheless, 

 curiously constructed, and being twisted about with great activity when the 

 creature is disturbed, look not a little like the tails of serpents whence the 

 name given to this family. 



A very interesting circumstance in the economy of these animals is their 

 extreme brittleness, whence they have merited the name of " Brittle-stars: 1 

 On the least alarm or excitement, the creature throws off one or perhaps all 

 its rays, and breaks them into fragments. This faculty renders the preservation 

 of a perfect specimen very difficult. 



* i(}>is, ophis, a snake; ovpa, oura, the tail. 



