734 



THE BRITTLE-STARS. 



their long arms as if they were indeed the serpents with which Medusa's head was 

 surrounded. The least impurity in the water will cause these strange beings to break 

 themselves to pieces in this extraordinary manner, but they never seem to disintegrate 

 themselves with such rapidity as when they are touched or otherwise alarmed. 



The lamented Professor Forbes has left an admirably quaint description of this 

 suicidal process. Having in vain attempted to secure a perfect specimen of a Brittle- 

 star, he thought that he might achieve that object by having a pail of fresh water 

 lowered into the sea, so that as soon as the dredge reached the surface of the sea it 

 might be transferred to the bucket of fresh water, and all the inmates killed at once 

 by the shock. 



A fine specimen of the genus Luidia was then taken in the dredge. " As it does not 

 generally break up before it is raised above the surface of the sea, cautiously and 

 anxiously I sank my bucket to a level with the dredge's mouth, and proceeded, in the 

 most gentle manner, to introduce Luidia to the purer element. Whether the cold 

 element was too much for him, or the sight of the bucket too terrific, I know not ; but 

 in a moment he began to dissolve his corporation, and at every mesh of the dredge his 



COMMON BRITTLE-STAR. -OpA/oco/na rosula. 



WHITE SAND-STAR.- Ophiurus albidut. 



fragments were seen escaping. In despair, I grasped the largest, and brought up the 

 extremity of an arm with its terminating eye, the spinous eyelid of which opened and 

 closed with something exceedingly like a wink of derision." 



These Brittle-stars are, however, extremely capricious in their exercise of this curious 

 power. It sometimes happens that, as in the instance so amusingly narrated, the 

 creatures break themselves to pieces without any apparent provocation, while, in other 

 cases, specimen after specimen may be taken, handled, killed, or wounded, without the 

 loss of a ray. Even in the aquarium, they are equally uncertain in their habits, at one 

 hour being entire and splendid specimens, and at the next being little but a solitary 

 disk amid a ruined heap of broken arms. 



THE word Ophiurus is of Greek origin, signifying snake-tail, and is therefore very 

 appropriately given to these curious beings, whose slender arms twist and coil just like 

 a handful of small serpents. 



