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Deep tanks among these rocks, which the sea replenishes at high tide, and then leaves the bottom all covered with various sorts of sea-plants, as if it were some sea-monster's private garden. I saw a crab in one of them; five-fingers too. From the edge of the rocks, you may look off into deep, deep water, even at low tide.
Sometimes the lobstermen would capture a monkfish, whose undiscriminating appetite had led him to try to swallow a glass float; or a trap would come to the surface freighted with huge five-fingers or containing a short, ribbon-shaped eel, blood-red from nose to tail-tip.
Small fishes dart to and fro and hide themselves among the seaweed; there is also a solitary crab who appears to lead the life of a hermit, communing with none of the other denizens of the place, and likewise several five-fingers; for I know no other name than that which children give them.
Ask any fisherman what he thinks of the "harmless" Starfish, and he will call it a pest and a nuisance. "It gets into the crab traps," he says, "and eats all the bait. And when we are line-fishing it sucks the bait off our hooks, and sometimes swallows hook and all." Small wonder that Five-fingers, or Five-fingered Jack, as it is called, has no friend among fisher-folk.
There is a great deal more to know about Five-fingers; and the Sea-urchin still has his secrets which no one can explain. We have but glanced at their story in this lesson; but you can see that the Starfish, lying limp on the sands, is not so dull as it looks. Where is the mouth of the Starfish placed? Describe how the Starfish moves. How does the Starfish feed on the oyster?
Small fishes dart to and fro, and hide themselves among the sea-weed; there is also a solitary crab, who appears to lead the life of a hermit, communing with none of the other denizens of the place; and likewise several five-fingers, for I know no other name than that which children give them.
She seized a live horseshoe by the tail, and made prize of several five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun. Then she took up the white foam, that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scampering after it, with winged footsteps, to catch the great snow-flakes ere they fell.
Supporting the tough skin of Five-fingered Jack is a wonderful skeleton. It is like a network of fine plates and rods made of lime. Perhaps you have seen one in a museum. Five-fingers has a great number of cousins, some of them common enough along our shores. One of the strangest is the Brittle Star. On first seeing one of these animals I tried to capture it by holding its long, wriggling arms.
And as it was not the presence of birds that made the river road attractive, so neither was it any unwonted display of blossoms. "Indigo plant," we called it then. Here, however, on the way from New Smyrna to Hawks Park, I recall no violets, nor any verbena or spiderwort. It dotted the grass in Florida very much as five-fingers do in Massachusetts, I sometimes thought.
He picked out and threw over three or four large starfish, or "five-fingers." The hake head stuck on the bait-spear in the center was almost gone; Jim replaced it with a fresh head from the bait-tub. Then he seized a mottled, purplish crab that had been aimlessly scuttling to and fro across the bottom of the pot, and impaled him, back down, on the barb of the spear.
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