THE ZooLocist—JuneE, 1876. 4947 
twelvemonth a special tank in the Manchester Aquarium was devoted by 
me to the solution of the mystery hitherto enveloping the method in which 
the starfish attacked the body of the oyster and made it hisown. * % * 
In this tank at the Manchester Aquarium (No. 2, south corridor), there- 
fore, a number of oysters of various sizes were placed, and with them a 
collection of starfish of the largest dimensions, including Uraster rubens, 
U. glacialis, Cribella oculata, Solaster papposa, S. endeca, Luidia fragilis- 
sima, Asterias aurantiaca, &c. Notwithstanding the avowed epicurean 
tastes of our starfish, however, not a single attempt has been made by any 
one variety of these radiates to meddle with the oysters throughout the 
considerable interval during which they have been associated with one 
another. This circumstance is of itself sufficient to indicate that a great 
mistake concerning the habits of starfish has crept in somewhere, plainly 
showing at the same time that the oyster-devouring charge which is laid 
against them is without foundation.” 
On the other hand, Mr. Lloyd volunteers his evidence as a witness 
for the oyster and against the starfish. If Mr. Kent is a competent 
witness from his actual experience at Brighton, Manchester and 
Yarmouth, Mr. Lloyd is still more so from his still more extended 
experience at Hamburg and the Crystal Palace :— 
“Mr. W. 8. Kent, in the ‘ Field’ of April 22, assumes that such oysters 
as I have seen attacked by starfish in the manner I have described in the 
‘Field’ of the previous week (April 15) were ‘in a weakly and unhealthy 
condition.’ But his assumption is incorrect, because I am careful to say 
that if I have taken away the starfish at the commencement of an attack 
nothing has happened to the oyster, and it has gone on living and flourishing 
as well as oysters do live and flourish in aquaria. At p. 46 of the ‘ Crystal 
Palace Aquarium Handbook’ occurs this passage, written by me three years 
ago :—‘ They (Uraster rubens) are very voracious, and may be frequently 
seen in the Crystal Palace devouring oysters by insinuating their bladder- 
like, semi-transparent stomach (pouting from the mouth) between the tightly- 
closed shells of the bivalve, which then soon opens, and the oyster is 
destroyed.’ Now, an oyster never has its shells tightly closed if it is 
unhealthy, as the earliest sign of ill-health in bivalves is want of means of 
controlling the adductor muscles which pull the shells together. Yet I have 
drawn the stomach of a starfish from an oyster when the latter has been 
so tightly closed that appreciable force has been required for such with- 
drawal.” 
This exactly corresponds with my view of the case, and prior to 
reading either Mr. Kent or Mr. Lloyd I had published in the ‘ Field’ 
