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NOTES ON THE WAY IN WHICH A STARFISH EATS 

 A PIPE-FISH. 



By H. N. Milligan, F.Z.S. 



It is well known that the Common Starfish (Asterias rubens) 

 will devour almost any animal which it can manage to catch 

 and overcome, but, so far as I know, no precise account has 

 been given of the way in which this animal can make a meal of 

 a large Pipe-fish. 



For several months past I have had two medium-sized 

 healthy individuals of this Starfish living in an aquarium. On 

 March 3rd I obtained two specimens of the Deep-nosed Pipe-fish 

 {Siphonostoma typhle), which were alive, and two specimens of the 

 iEquoreal Pipe-fish (Nerophis tequoreus), which were nearly dead, 

 and at 3 p.m. I put all four of the Pipe-fishes into the aquarium 

 which contained the Starfishes. It so happened that one of the 

 Starfishes (which for convenience I will designate as A) was 

 walking towards the spot on which one Nerophis cequoreus fell. 

 When it arrived within about an inch and a half of the fish, the 

 asteroid, which had not been fed that day, seemed to become 

 aware of the fish, for it quickened its pace. It placed itself over 

 the Pipe-fish, and at once humped up its disc on its five arms 

 in the manner characteristic of a Starfish which is about to 

 take food. 



The way in which the Starfish dealt with such an awkwardly 

 shaped piece of food as a Pipe-fish of about ten inches in length 

 was exceedingly interesting. The asteroid had placed itself over 

 the head of the fish, not, of course, designedly, but because that 

 happened to be the part of the fish which it reached first. The 

 Starfish now supported itself by three arms, a, b, c, on the 

 ground, and one arm, d, fastened by its tube-feet to the glass 

 front of the aquarium, in the posture shown in fig. 1, the stiff 

 bent body of the fish resting on the ground at the point /. The 

 Starfish laid the arm e parallel with the straight part of the 



