THE AUSTRALIAN iMUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



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along, they travel at a rapid rate. Tlioy 

 move by a su-^cession of snake-like un- 

 dulations of tlieir arms, and tliese lonfr 

 arms are attached to a central disc whicli 

 is quite small. In the startish the lays 



Brittle starfish (Ophiothrix fumaria). 



Common under loose stones in pools, and in 



crevices between tide marks. 



Photo. — A. .Musgrave. 



seem to be part of the- body, but in these 

 creatures they seem like mere append- 

 ages. 



The name ''Brittle-star" given to these 

 curious animals refers to the extra- 

 ordinary way in which they break them- 

 selves to pieces .when captured. A lizard 

 will snap oE its own tail if held by it, 

 but the brittle-star, when angry or ter- 

 rified, deliberately breaks all its arms 

 into fragments to show its annoyance. 

 But this does not mean that the creature 

 is committing" suicide, for after a short 

 interval all the broken parts will be re- 

 newed and the animal will be literally as 

 good as new. 



SEA-SQUIRTS OR ASCIDIAXS. 



At dead low tide you may find the 

 Cunjevoi or sea-squirt, which has the 

 scientific name of Cynthia. You may 

 easily know it by the fine jets of water 

 which it squirts up as you approach. 

 Despite the pretty name of Cynthia 

 it is about as ugly a thing as is made; 

 it is like an irregular, very warty, and 



somt'wliat hairy bag, with two openings 

 like mouths at the top of its body. These 

 mouths gape open when the tide is com- 

 ing in and are then seen to be red in 

 colour. 



Tliis animal is one of the greatest 

 curiosities of the shore, inasmuch as it 

 belongs to the same suWkingdom of 

 animal life as ourselves — that is, it is 

 one of the vertebrated animals or ani- 

 mals with backl)ones. I am not saying 

 that the sea-S(|uirt luus a Ijackboiie, but I 

 mean that the young sea-scjuirt has the 

 beginnings of one, which, however, it 

 loses as it grows up. The fact is that 

 Cynthia is a shocking degenerate. The 

 young animal is something like a very 

 small tadpole in shape and is able to 

 swim quite freely; it has a well deve- 

 loped nervous system, a good eye, and 

 otiier sense organs. But after a very 

 short time it fixes itself to a rock and 

 l)egins a retrograde movement and ends 

 by becoming the immovable degenerate 

 adult which has lost all visible connec- 

 tion with the higher types of life. There 

 is of course a reason for this. Cynthia 

 is an awful example of the effects of 

 having plenty of food without having 

 to work for it. Long ages ago it was 

 probably an active creature, but food 

 was plentiful and the animal just had 



Cunjevoi (Cynthia praeputialis) . 



The cunjevoi overlap the extreme edge of the 



low tide mark, exposed to the full wash of the 



surf on the coast. 



Plioto. — .\. Musgrave. 



to open its mouth as it went along and 

 the food went in. This made it lazy, 

 so it tried the effect of just sitting down 

 with its mouth open, and found that it 

 got its food just the same. Tlie result 

 was that finally it just anchored itself 



