A REVERSIBLE STOMACH. 



120 



DINIKG UPON AN OYSTER. 



until it can seize upon the body of the mollusk. The consumption of this 

 begins at once, and as fast as the poor oj'ster's or scallop's body is drawn 

 within its folds, the capacious stomach is pushed farther and farther in, 

 until at last, if the mollusk be a large one, the pouches that I have de- 

 scribed as packed away in the cavities of the rajs are also drawn forth, 

 and the star-fish has substantially turned himself wrong side out. 



If dredged at this stage, as many examples constantly happen to be, 

 and dragged away from his half -eaten prey, his stomach will be seen 

 hanging out of the centre of his body for a distance, perhaps, equal to half 

 the length of one of the arms, and filled with the juices of the oyster he 

 has just devoured, whose body, within the shell, will be found almost as 

 squarely trimmed as could have been done by scissors. If put very 

 gently into a bucket of salt-water, and left in peace, the star-fish will 

 straighten himself out, and slowly retract his extruded abdomen, as he 

 would have done, after his meal was digested, had he not been disturbed ; 

 but if the least violence is used he will spurt out the liquid, and quickly 

 draw the distended pouch back into his body. As a rule, however, the 

 anory fisherman does not have patience for these experiments. 



This process is the one followed in the case of large-sized mollusks. 

 Very young oysters and other small prey are enveloped in the stomach, 

 shell and all. The gastric juice then kills and dissolves out the soft parts, 

 after which the hard crust is thrown away by the cversion and with- 

 drawal of the stomach. 



When oysters first were cultivated along the American coast, and this 



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