OCEAK GABDENS ; 



and filled with water. The internal structure of 

 these creatures is very intricate and beautiful, and 

 the skeleton of almost any kind offers the appear- 

 ance of that of some exquisitely symmetrical flower. 

 There are fourteen British species of Star-Fish, the 

 finest being the Sun-Star, Solaster papposa^ the 

 disk, surrounded with twelve or thirteen rays, vary- 

 ing in colour from scarlet to deep purple, the rays 

 being sometimes of a different colour. 



The Luidia fragilissima is also a large kind, 

 sometimes two feet across, which is peculiar to the 

 British shores. It possesses the peculiar faculty of 

 breaking itself into fragments when enraged or 

 captured ; and, in a work by the lamented Professor 

 Porbes, there is a very graphic and facetious account 

 of a specimen that escaped him in a very deter- 

 mined way by a suicide of this kind. 



Stars of this class, having the power to dislocate 

 their structure, are popularly known as brittle Stars. 

 Some affect to consider this faculty not so very 

 wonderful ; but let such suppose for a moment some 

 higher animal — a man, for instance — -gifted with ^ 

 capacity for exploding his trunk and limbs into 

 moderately-sized fragments — into joints, as a butcher 

 would say— at any slight provocation, and then tha 

 character of such a power would appear very suf- 



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