“What nasty thing is that?” exclaimed Digby, looking at it with disgust.
“Nasty! no; it is a magnificent Holothuria, or sea-cucumber. Toby would call it a sea-pudding. It will look very different when it is in my vivarium, let me tell you. It now looks like a great bag, but the outside of that bag is covered with numbers of suckers, by which it is able to crawl about at a rapid rate; while in the inside are its head and intestines, and all its fishing apparatus.”
“I should like to see it in full action,” said Digby. “But I say, Marshall, what are all those lumps of jelly? Are they good to eat? They look as if they would be, boiled a little, perhaps.”
Marshall laughed heartily. “I doubt if even the Chinese attempt to eat them. If they do, they must eat them raw, for even in the air they very soon dissolve. Those are Medusae, or jelly-fish, or sea-nettles. The first English name they obtain from their appearance, the second on account of the property they possess of stinging; and that you would soon discover if, when you were bathing, one of them got his long arms round you.”
“Arms, surely they have not got arms?” said Digby.
“Indeed they have, and very long arms, too, with which they can catch all sorts of prey. They have mouths and all internal arrangements, and, soft and gelatinous as they appear, they can consume animals of a much higher organisation than themselves. You would not suppose that they could gobble up crabs, yet they can do so without the slightest difficulty. They have also the property of giving forth light. You may see them by thousands floating about near the surface of the water, in shape like small umbrellas, and moving up and down just as if a heart beat beneath. You will find them often in the river when the flood-tide is coming in; and when we go on our trawling expedition we shall see numbers of them.”
Digby, notwithstanding what Marshall had told him, had not quite made up his mind about them; and as he had brought a basket in which to carry curiosities, he put several of them into it.
“Ah, here are some of the things I admire,” exclaimed Digby, picking up a star-fish. “They are curious.”
“Not more so than many others,” answered Marshall. “Yet I agree with you, that they are very curious indeed. You would not suppose that they can crawl along at the bottom of the sea at a considerable rate, and that they are the most voracious of marine animals. They have a big mouth in the centre of the lower side; and those star-like arms supply them with food. They progress by means of suckers, with which the whole of the lower part of their bodies is covered. They are the scavengers of the ocean; and it is wonderful the amount of animal food they can consume, which would otherwise tend to putrefy the ocean itself. Another curious circumstance about them is, that when one or more of their rays are broken off, fresh ones are produced; indeed, I have seen it stated in print that a single ray has produced the mouth and the other rays, and then that the old ray has fallen off, and that a new star-fish, in its perfect proportions, has been thus reformed.”
“I dare say what you tell me is all true,” said Digby; “but it is very hard to believe.”