608 
Photo by} LZ. Step, F.L.S. 
SUN-STAR. 
One of the most beautiful of the Sea-stars. Its 
crimson upper side, often varied with white, is studded 
with! little bundles of fine spines. Its arms vary from 
twelve to fifteen. It is found in deeper water than 
Five-fingers. (About one-third of the natural size.) 
Marvels of the Universe 
shell; he has a better plan for accomplishing his 
nefarious ends. Like his cousin, the Sea Urchin, of 
which we recently wrote in these pages, Five-fingers is 
provided with tube-feet, which end in sucker; and are 
worked by hydraulic power. If Five-fingers can 
attach a number of these to the valve of the oyster’s 
shell, and then bunch his five arms together so that he 
stands, as it were, upon tiptoe, he can exert such a 
strain that the oyster’s muscles cannot stand for long, 
and the shell If you turn Five-fingers over 
you will see that he has a very small mouth, and the 
eating of an oyster appears to be entirely out of the 
question. What he actually does is more wonderful : 
he passes out a portion of his stomach through the 
mouth, surrounds the oyster with it and digests the 
You may often sur- 
prise him among the rocks when his five arms are thus 
contracted, and if you can act smartly and turn him 
over, you can see the protruded walls of the stomach 
enwrapping a mussel or three or four small sea-snails. 
gapes. 
mollusc first and then swallows it. 
What we previously said of the organization of the Sea Urchin applies to a large extent to the 
Sea-stars. 
The five-sided idea is manifested here in the five arms. 
There are the similar tube- 
feet, and the beak-like organs for defence and cleanliness, the stony filter that supplies the water- 
tubes with water free from grit, the same method of locomotion. 
But it will be noticed that there 
are no teeth to the mouth. Five-fingers cannot feed upon any hard substances that cannot be 
digested without previous mastication. 
It will be noticed, too, that the tube-feet are all produced 
from a deep groove, which runs along the centre of each arm on the underside only, and that these 
Photo by) 
(HZ. J. Shepstone. 
THE SHETLAND ARGUS. 
This remarkable Sea-star is a native of northern 
seas. It has only five arms, but these fork from the 
base, the branches constantly subdividing, so that 
the ultimate divisions are exceedingly numerous. 
The arms are here shown in a contracted state; 
when extended the Star measures more than a foot 
across, 
grooves all extend from the tips of the arms to the 
mouth, which is in the centre of them all. 
The Sea Urchin had a_ skeleton of five-sided 
plates edges joined to 
spherical or cupola- or heart-shaped box, invested by 
a thin layer of flesh and armed with movable spines. 
The skeleton of the Starfish is not continuous and 
but more like scaffolding to support a 
covering which, though it appears thick and leathery, 
There are 
comparatively few and 
whose make a complete 
box-like, 
is a very delicate and sensitive material. 
too, but they are 
are the beak-like defensive organs. In 
some species, like the larger Spiny Starfish of our 
they are both 
numerous ; whilst in some other forms they are so 
short and close together that on a superficial inspec- 
tion they may be regarded as non-existent. The 
photograph on page 608 shows a Starfish that has 
been cut through horizontally and the fleshy portions 
all dissolved away, leaving only the skeleton, which 
spines, 
short, as 
western coasts, larger and more 
is seen to be a meshwork of little rods rather than 
solid plates, as in the Sea Urchins. By it is a 
