104 



LIFE, IN ITS LOWER FORMS. 



shall find it no less unique than its locomotion. The whole 

 tribe are the scavengers of the sea, searching out and 

 greedily devouring the fragments of carrion that other- 

 wise might infect the ocean and render it poisonous to 

 living animals. But besides this indiscriminate appetite, 

 the Star-fish has long been suspected of a dainty epicurism 

 in the matter of shell-fish ; and old Admiralty laws in- 

 flicted a heavy penalty on any one who, finding a Five- 

 finger on the shore, did not crush it under his heel, or 

 throw it up beyond the reach of the tide. Difficulties, to 

 be sure, presented themselves in the w r ay of a Star-fish 

 inclining to oyster-suppers, and a theory was, as usual, 

 invented to meet them. It was reported that the Star- 

 fish, insidiously lying in wait till the blind oyster gaped, 

 dexterously inserted a ray between the valves, which 

 being thus prevented from closing, the delicate morsel was 

 extracted at leisure. This would have been surprising 

 enough ; but truth is stranger than fiction. Observation 

 seems to have established the following facts : The mouth 

 of the Uraster is destitute of teeth ; but the whole oeso- 

 phagus, and, in fact, the stomach, are capable of being 

 turned inside out in the form of great vesicular lobes, and 

 of insinuating themselves into minute orifices. When the 

 animal, then, wishes to feed on a bivalve mollusk, it clasps 

 it, valves and all, with its embracing rays, holding fast 

 its prey though the waves may roll it about like a 

 ball. Meanwhile the stomach is pouted out, and finding 

 access into the interior at the points where the valves 

 slightly gape, it manages to dilate itself within, and ex- 

 tract the nutritive juices of the victim ; the process 

 being aided, as is supposed, by the injection of a poison- 



