336 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



preservation, to my horror and disappointment I found only an 

 assemblage of rejected members. My conservative endeavours 

 were all neutralised by its destructive exertions, and it is now 

 badly represented in my cabinet by an armless disk and a 

 diskless arm. Next time I went to dredge on the same spot, 

 determined not to be cheated out of a specimen in such a way 

 a second time, I brought with me a bucket of cold fresh water> 

 to which article star-fishes have a great antipathy. As I ex- 

 pected, a luidia came up in the dredge, a most gorgeous specimen. 

 As it does not generally break up before it is raised above the 

 surface of the sea, cautiously and anxiously I sunk my bucket 

 to a level with the dredge's mouth, and proceeded in the most 

 gentle manner to introduce luidia to the purer element. 

 Whether the cold air was too much for him, or the sight of 

 the bucket too terrific, I know not, but in a moment he pro- 

 ceeded to dissolve his corporation, and at every mesh of the 

 dredge his fragments were seen escaping. In despair I grasped 

 at the largest, and brought up the extremity of an arm with 

 its terminating eye, the spinous eyelid of which opened and 

 closed with something exceedingly like a wink of derision." 



The Sea-star might be called a flattened sea-urchin, with 

 radiated lobes, and the Sea-urchin, a contracted or condensed 



sea-star, so near is their re- 

 lationship. In both we find 

 the same radiating construc- 

 tion, in which the number five 

 is so conspicuous, and in both 

 also the rows of suckers, which, 

 starting from a centre, are 

 set into motion by a similar 

 mechanism, and used for the 

 same purpose. In all the sea- 

 urchins finally, and in many 

 Goniaster. of the sea-stars, we find the 



surface of the body covered 

 with numerous exceedingly minute, two- or three-forked pincers, 

 that perpetually move from side to side, and open and shut with- 

 out intermission. These active little organs, which have beeD 

 named Pedicellarice, were formerly supposed to be parasites, 

 working on their own account, but they are now almost univer- 



