The Star-fish, not unlike all other animals of the sea, has an appetite that is never satisfied. Dinner is always welcome. The procurement of food seems its chief concern in life. It is a scavenger of no mean importance, keeping up an incessant chase after all kinds of dead animal matter, and thus largely contributing, it is probable, towards the maintaining of the waters of the ocean in a state of purity. But its feeding is not exclusively restricted to decaying matters. Any species of mollusk, from the humble whelk, not more than five-eighths of an inch in length, to the lordly oyster, so esteemed by epicures, constitutes a dainty tidbit. No more inveterate ravager and brigand, not even excepting man himself, have the oyster-beds to disturb the equanimity and serenity of their existence than the audacious, insinuating Star-fish.

With its five arms, and apparently without any other organ, this comparatively insignificant little being accomplishes a work which man, without the aid of extraneous appliances, is quiet unable to execute. It opens an oyster as deftly and effectually as an expert oysterman would do, and that, too, without the habitual oyster-knife, and swallows the slimy bivalve in the same manner as the lords of creation do. Man, with all his genius and skill, were he deprived of all other means of subsistence than the oyster, and having no implement with which to open it, would be severely puzzled to get at the savory morsel shut up in its obstinate valves, yet the Star-fish performs the task seemingly without the least difficulty.

How the Star-fish manages the problem was at first a matter of guess-work. For a long time it was confidently believed that the animal waited for the moment when the oyster opened its shell to introduce one of its arms into the opening. This much gained, the other four arms were got in without much trouble, and the whole business ended with the devouring of the inmate. This belief is no longer tenable. Careful observation has revealed to us the true

inwardness of the proceeding. The oyster is seized between the arms of the Star-fish and held under its mouth by the aid of its suckers. Thus secured, the Asterias, or Star-fish, everts its stomach, and envelops the whole oyster in its interior recesses, distilling a poisonous fluid, a secretion from its mouth, which causes the oyster to open its shell, when the robber, as it were, crawls in and takes its dessert. Incredible numbers of oysters are destroyed by Star-fishes, but the oystermen fail to see that their own barbaric ignorance is largely to blame. Star-fishes drawn up in nets, rakes and dredges in immense quantities are tied into bundles, but the cords are made so tight that the pile is cut in twain, the result being that all the pieces, when afterwards thrown overboard, become new and perfect Star-fishes.

Not often has one the pleasure of meeting with these animals on the New Jersey coast, but yet they are occasionally seen, more frequently, perhaps, in the North. Asterias berylinus, the commoner form, is a fairly large species, of a more or less greenish color, sometimes waning to brown, and roughly covered with tubercles. Its five arms, at the extremity of each of which is situated a single red-eye speck,

are somewhat irregularly arranged, and not rarely one is stumpy through breakage or unequal development.

When a Star-fish is alarmed, or finds itself in strange quarters, it will be seen to curl up the tips of its rays, and there under the point of each ray will be found a thick red spot seated on the extremity of a nerve, and having in it as many as from one hundred to two hundred crystal lenses surrounded by red cells. With such a highly-developed eye, which is far better than the jelly-fish enjoys, it is no wonder that the Star-fish is so quick in discerning food, or enrages the fisherman by the discovery of the bait which he had intended for other animals, for it turns out that this stupidlooking animal is more wide-awake than it is given credit for. Sometimes, as in the beautifully delicate Star-fish, called the "Lingthorn," a soft lid, or feeler, hangs over the eye-spot, which gives to the creature a curiously intelligent look, but in the case of our common form this lid is notably absent.

From all that has been written it must be evident that our first walking animal is by no means a poor or feeble creature. He has a chain armor woven into his leathery skin, with sharp, pointed spines, and snapping, beak-like claws to protect him; an excellent digestion and a capacious mouth to feed his greedy stomach, and a fine array of nerves, quick feeling and eyesight, and a wonderful apparatus for moving over the ground. When it is added to all these possessions the ability to close over the wound in the case of a lost ray and the growing of a new one, we see that his powers of living satisfactorily are by no means insignificant. But this curious walking apparatus of the Star-fish is far from being perfect in all his relations. They do not all walk by means of suckers any more than all sponge-animals build toilet sponge, or all slime-animals make chambered shells. Sure, the Rosy Feather-stars, for example, have no use for feet-tubes, as their lives are generally spent upon the rocks or nestled in bunches of sea-weed. Brittle-stars, as these are called, though closely related to the Star-fishes, are not easily

confounded with them, for their arms are found to radiate from a clearly defined central disk, and there is no prolongation of their stomachs and ovaries into their interiors. The tubefeet pass out from the plates along the sides of the arms, instead of from the under surface as in the Star-fishes proper, and probably serve merely as a help for breathing, locomotion over the sands being effected by their long flexible arms. Their home is chiefly among the tangle and eel-grass, where their protecting covering affords them security from their many enemies.

EARTH-WORMS IN HISTORY.

E

ARTH-WORMS are found throughout the world.

Though few in genera, and not many in species, yet they make up in individual numbers, for it has been estimated that they average about one hundred thousand to the acre. Our American species have never been monographed, which renders it impossible to judge of their probable number. Their castings may be seen on commons, so as to cover almost entirely their surface, where the soil is poor and the grass short and thin, and they are almost as numerous in some of our parks where the grass grows well and the soil appears rich. Even on the same piece of ground worms are much more frequent in some places than in others, although no visible difference in the nature of the soil is manifest. They abound in paved court-yards contiguous to houses, and on the sidewalks in country towns, and instances have been reported where they have burrowed through the floors of very damp cellars.

Beneath large trees few castings can be found during certain parts of the year, and this is apparently due to the moisture having been sucked out of the ground by the innumerable roots of the trees, an explanation which seems to be confirmed by the fact that such places may be observed covered with castings after the heavy autumnal rains. Although most coppices and woods support large numbers of worms, yet in forests of certain kinds of tree-growths, where the ground beneath is destitute of vegetation, not a casting is seen over wide reaches of ground, even during the autumn. In mountainous districts worms are mostly rare, it