610 Marvels of the Universe 
Sun-star, from which also the flesh has been abstracted. Such treatment produces very beautiful 
and instructive specimens. 
Starfishes do not all conform to the same shape, as the last-mentioned photograph will show. 
The Sun-stars have from eleven to fifteen arms, shorter than those of Five-fingers, and with the 
central disc much broader. Another photograph shows it with the flesh on. The spines are gathered 
into numerous bundles. Another form common under stones on our south and west coasts is the 
little greenish-grey Cushion-star, or Starlet, in which the angles between the five arms are almost 
filled up. Several modifications of this type occur, until we reach the extraordinary Bird’s-foot 
Sea-star, which is so thin, it looks as though it had been under a steam-roller which had completely 
filled up the intervening spaces. The Five-horned Sea-star, from Mozambique, belongs to a family 
whose skeleton consists of p'ates rather than rods, and the spines are replaced by a granular 
roughness. Another form has very numerous arms, which is supposed to give it a resemblance to 
a sunflower. 
But there is a distinct division of Sea-stars in which the arms are long and snake-like and less 
fleshy. They are collectively known as Sand-stars and Brittle-stars. They are more or less bony- 
looking and spiny, and their arms, instead of broadening to their bases to form the disc, are of 
more equal breadth throughout, and their bases are far apart when they unite with the more circular 
disc. The type is well seen in the Common Sand-star photographed on page 605, while the species 
of this order of Starfishes are numerous. There are no sucker-feet as in Five-fingers, though these 
are represented by undeveloped fleshy cones which serve as sense-organs but are useless for 
locomotion. The Sand-stars and Brittle-stars make their way over the sand and rocks by wriggling, 
“Photo bu | (A step, “LS. 
SKELETONS OF SEA-STARS. 
Here the fleshy portions of the Stars have been dissolved away to show the beautiful and intricate bony scaffolding 
upon which the various forms are based 
