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NOTES ON STARFISHES FEEDING UPON SIPHONO- 

 STOMA TYPHLE. 



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



In the April issue of ' The Zoologist ' I published a paper 

 describing the way in which two Common Starfishes made 

 meals of two Pipe-fishes of the species known as Nerophis 

 cequoreus. I have now to record the movements and behaviour 

 of these two asteroids in feeding upon a Broad-nosed Pipe-fish 

 (Siphonostoma typhle), which was considerably larger, and there- 

 fore more difficult to deal with, than either of the two iEquoreal 

 Pipe-fishes. 



The Broad-nosed Pipe-fish, which measured twelve inches in 

 length, five- sixteenths of an inch at its broadest, and three- 

 eighths of an inch at its deepest part, although not in good 

 health on the evening of April 8th, did not seem likely to die 

 that night. On the following morning, however, I found that 

 the Pipe-fish was dead, and that a Starfish was straddling over 

 it. I do not know whether the fish had been grasped by the 

 asteroid before or after death, but in the former case it seems 

 probable that the Pipe-fish must have been in an exhausted 

 condition when it was seized, because both this Pipe-fish and 

 another individual of the same species, as well as two examples 

 of the Pipe-fish known as Nerophis ophidion, had lived for several 

 weeks in the same aquarium without being touched. I may 

 here remark, however, that I have seen one of the Starfishes 

 grasp with two of its arms an unhealthy and sluggish Fifteen- 

 spined Stickleback, though without being able to retain it. I do 

 not think the Starfish had been sitting over the Pipe-fish for 

 more than about an hour before I found it, because, so far as I 

 could see, only a little of the skin of the fish had yet been 

 digested. The difficulties with which the Starfish had to 

 contend in holding firmly the long body of the Pipe-fish were 

 increased by the asteroid being on the side, not on the bottom, 

 of the aquarium. 



At 9.45 a.m. the Starfish, which I will call A, in order to 

 distinguish it from the other Starfish in the aquarium, was in 

 the posture shown in fig. 1, the bent tail of the fish resting on 



