STAR-FISHES, 



115 



larva, which has acted as a nidus for it, but throws it off 

 as so much useless lumber — flesh, rods, and all ! 



Thus does Science continually say to us, startled by 

 discovery after discovery, each more strange than its pre- 

 decessor — - 



" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 

 Than are dreamed of in your philosophy." 



In Plate IV., some of the forms of Echinodermata are 

 represented. In the right-hand corner is the Rosette 

 Brittle-star (Ophioco?na rosy la), sprawling its snake-like 

 arms over a rock. Beside this, on the left, the globose 

 crustaceous case of the Common Urchin (Echinus sphivra), 

 denuded of its spines, displays the arrangement of its con- 

 stituent plates, and the form of the tubercles. Above, a 

 Purple-tipped Urchin (E, miliaris) is mounting the per- 

 pendicular rock by means of its numerous sucker-feet 3 

 and on the right of this, swimming freely through the 

 water, is seen the singular pellucid larva of a Brittle-star. 

 The reader must be pleased, however, to understand that, 

 whereas all the other objects are depicted of their natural 

 size, this is greatly magnified ; a violence to nature indis- 

 pensable to its representation at all, since it is really nc 

 larger than the hole which would be made by a fine needle 

 in a piece of paper, or the period which terminates thU 

 paragraph. 



