866 ECHINODERMATA—SEA STAR. 
culated feet; their nervous system is indistinctly traced; and their organs of 
motion are extremely imperfect. The Echinodermata are all marine ani 
mals, and have the faculty, like many other of the more imperfect animals, 
of speedily regenerating parts of their bodies which have been broken or 
separated. Lamarck divides the class into three sections, viz. Fistulides, 
Echinides, and Stellerides, while Cuvier arranges it into two orders, the first 
including those which possess numerous membranous tentacula, serving as 
organs of motion, and the second those which are destitute of these organs. 
Latreille makes two classes of the same animals, under the names of Hdl o- 
thurida and Echinoderma. The arrangement of Lamarck is chiefly followed; 
but we have added a fourth section, comprising, under the title of Crinoide, 
given to them by Mr. Miller, the animal remains known by the name of 
Encrinites. 
THE SEA STAB, 

CatteD also the star-fish ; these curious animals inhabit the sea, and are 
generally found on the sand, or among rocks, considerably below low water 
mark. They are covered with a coriaceous crust, and have five or more 
rays proceeding from a centre, in which is situated the mouth. A prodigious 
number of tentacula, or short fleshy tube., which seem at once calculated 
to catch prey, and to anchor the animal to the rocks, proceed from each ray. 
The mouth is armed with long teeth, for the purpose of breaking the shells 
on which the animals feed. The animal breathes by means of gills. The 
common, or five-rayed star-fish,! which is the species here represented, has 
tive angular rays, with prickly protuberances at the angles. When alive, it 
is usually of a brownish white color. In one of these, which he kept for 
some time alive, Mr. Bingley observed more than four thousand tentacula, 
on the under sides of the rays. 


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1 Asterias rubens, Lin. 
