[CHAP. XVI.]
ECHINODERMATA.
STAR-FISHES, SEA-URCHINS, AND SEA-CUCUMBERS.
The Star-Fishes.—Their Feet or Suckers.—Voracity of the Asterias.—The Rosy Feather-Star.—Brittle and Sand-Stars.—The real Sea-Stars of the British Waters.—The Sea-Urchins.—The Pedicellariæ.—The Shell and the Dental Apparatus of the Sea-Urchin.—The Sea-Cucumbers.—Their strange Dismemberments.—Trepang-fishing on the Coast of North Australia.—In the Feejee Islands.
"As there are stars in the sky, so are there stars in the sea," is the poetical exordium of Link's treatise on Star-fishes, the first ever published on the subject; and James Montgomery tells us in rather bombastic style, that the seas are strewn with the images of the constellations with which the heavens are thronged.
This is no doubt highly complimentary to the star-fishes, but is far from being merited by any particularly shining or radiant quality; as they occupy a very inferior grade among the denizens of the sea, and merely owe their stellar name to their form, which somewhat resembles the popular notion of a star.
But if they are of an inferior rank to most marine animals; if even the stupid oyster boasts of a heart, which they do not possess; yet a closer inspection of their organisation shows us many wonderful peculiarities, and proves to us once more that nature has impressed the stamp of perfection as well upon her lowest and most simple creations, as upon those beings that rank highest in the scale of life.
Every one knows the common Star-fish, with its lanceolate arms; its generally orange-coloured back, thickly set with tubercles, and the pale under-surface, with its rows of feet, feelers, or suckers, which serve both for locomotion and the seizure of food.
When one of these creatures is placed on its back, in a plate filled with sea-water, it is exceedingly curious to watch the activity which those numberless sucking feet display. At first the star-fish is motionless; for, offended by the rough handling it has undergone, the feet have all shrunk into the body; but soon they are seen to emerge like so many little worms from their holes, and to grope backwards and forwards through the water, evidently seeking the nearest ground to lay hold of. Those that reach it first immediately affix their suckers, and, by contracting, draw a portion of the body after them, so as to enable others to attach themselves, until, pulley being added to pulley, their united power is sufficient to restore the star-fish to its natural position.