94 
LIFE, IN ITS LOWEB 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 (journal), 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 bo 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 pinnae; so that 
it seems furnished with so many claws, the hard stony 
nature of which, as well as the muscular force with 
which they aro 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. 
