94 



LIFE, IN ITS LOWER FORMS. 



A full-grown Feather-star is about four inches in ex- 

 panse : it consists of a central disk, which is a little cup of 

 shelly substance containing the viscera in its concavity, 

 and furnished on its margin with ten long, slender, jointed 

 shelly rays. Strictly speaking, they are but five ; but they 

 bifurcate so close to their origin as to appear like ten. The 

 joints of the rays are composed of calcareous substance ; are 

 perforated, so that each ray is tubular • are rough on the 

 outside, and bear on two opposite sides rows of flattened 

 leaf-like appendages (pinnce), which are themselves jointed, 

 and margined with tentacular filaments. Besides these 

 complex organs, the convex (which is the inferior) side of 

 the body is furnished with about thirty jointed filaments, 

 which are shorter, and not pinnated. 



A very elegant object is the Feather-star when in 

 health and activity in its native element. Its ordinary 

 hues are crimson and yellow, disposed in irregular 

 patches. On one occasion we had an opportunity of per- 

 sonal observation of its manners. We have alluded to its 

 mode of swimming : when it reposes, it sits on the frond 

 of a sea- weed, or on the projecting point of some angular 

 rock, which it grasps with its dorsal filaments, and that 

 so firmly, that it is "difficult to tear it from its hold. If 

 violence be used, it will catch hold of its support or of any 

 other object within reach, with the tips of its rays, which 

 it hooks down for the purpose, and with its pinna ; so that 

 it seems furnished with so many claws, the hard stony 

 nature of which, as well as the muscular force with 

 which they are applied, is revealed by the creaking, 

 scratching noise which they make when they are forced 

 from any hold, as if they were made of glass. 



