ECHINODERMA TA. 26 1 



visceral apparatus for its own use. But the Asterias makes itself a 

 mouth of any of the pieces most remote from the primitive mouth of 

 the larval form. Thus the Bipinnaria divides itself; it gives its 

 stomach and intestines, and keeps its oesophagus and mouth, and 

 it can live several days after the Asterias is detached from it. 



Can any one imagine the existence of a being with only a mouth 

 and oesophagus, which has neither stomach nor intestines, because 

 another animal has possessed itself of them for its own use ? The 

 study of the lower animals abounds in surprises of this kind. It is a 

 chain of unforeseen facts, of natural impossibilities, of realised 

 points necessarily reversing all our notions obtained in the study of 

 beings which have a higher place in the animal scale. The history 

 of the star-fishes would be incomplete were we to omit mentioning 

 one of the most remarkable traits of their organisation with which 

 naturalists are acquainted. The animals exhibit in the highest 

 degree the vital phenomena of dismemberment and restoration, that 

 is to say, of the faculty of reconstructing organs which they have lost. 

 Their arms, the structure of which is so complicated, and which 

 protect such important organs, may be destroyed by accident. The 

 animal troubles itself little at this mutilation ; if it loses an arm it 

 disquiets it but little, another is, after a time, found to take its place. 

 We often see in our collections of Asterias specimens wanting in 

 symmetry because they have been taken before the new members 

 which are in process of development have attained their definite 

 length. Professor Rymer Jones mentions an instance of reintegra- 

 tion very complete and most curious. This naturalist had an isolated 

 ray of Asterias, which he had picked up ; at the end of five days he 

 observed that four little rays and a mouth had been produced \ at 

 the end of a month the old ray was completely destroyed, and this 

 apparently useless fragment had been replaced by a new being, quite 

 perfect, with four little symmetrical arms. This faculty of repro- 

 ducing organs, which we have noted in describing the fresh-water 

 polyps, the sea anemones, &c., exists also in many other forms, but 

 in none more striking than in the Asterias. But a still more startling 

 fact remains to be mentioned — one more strange and more mysterious, 

 for it does not belong to things physical or organic, but appears to 

 belong to the moral world — the star-fishes commit suicide ! Certain 

 of these animals appear to escape from dangers which menace them 

 by self-destruction. This power of putting an end to existence we 

 find only on the highest and lowest steps of the animal scale. Man 

 and the star-fishes have a common moral platform, and it is that of 

 self-destruction ! 



