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 way 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 TJraster 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- 
