ECHINODERMATA. 261 
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 cesophagus 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apparently useless fragment had been replaced by a new being, quite 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 bélong 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 ! 
