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Once there was a little star-fish, and he had five fingers and five eyes, one at the end of each finger, so that he might be said to have at least one power at his fingers' ends.
We found five small kinds of sea-leeches; and among three kinds of star-fish, the Asterias Echinites, the large radii of which easily inflict a severe wound; another had the form of the Asterias Luna, was eight inches in diameter, without radii, and had more the appearance of a round loaf of bread somewhat flattened.
One may behold a sort of Neptune's Garden at many points, similar to, but not quite equaling, that described at Point de Galle. The eye is delighted by bright-hued anemones, as large as a cauliflower, together with strange fishes in vivid colors, extensive coral, star-fish in blue and scarlet, and busy, smoky-groves of green crabs in search of their marine food.
First came a species of marine soup, that consisted of tiny star-fish and cuttle-fish stewed till they were very tender, then smothered in white sauce. Slices of tunny fish followed, almost as substantial as beefsteak, then some goats flesh, that closely resembled mutton, and with it a vegetable called fennel, which is rather like celery with a dash of aniseed about it.
Soon the boys joined him, loaded already; for there were such heaps of treasures long razor shells, whelk and cockle shells, limpets, mussels, periwinkles, star-fish in the pools, seaweed of all shapes and colours, shrimps; while all over the sand where they stood, busy sea-lice were hopping about in myriads.
The highest development of animal life he has seen in the MAMMALIA SALOON, all the animals of which produce their young alive and suckle them; the order of life immediately below the mammalia, he has examined in the marvellous varieties of birds arranged in the NORTHERN GALLERY; then he turned to the west, and examined the third order of animal life in the REPTILES; then the fourth order represented by FISH; and so on till he watched the simpler forms of life in the STAR-FISH and the SPONGE.
We drank fresh water from the spring under the green hillside; we bought apples and oranges at the store, and furs of the furrier; we rowed in a skiff and scampered over the hills to Dutch Harbor; we watched jelly-fish and pink star-fish in the water; we saw white reindeer apparently as tame as cows browsing on the slopes; we visited an old Greek church, and were kept from the very holiest place where only men were allowed to go, retaliating when we came to the cash box at the door we dropped nothing in; we climbed the highest mountain near by, and staked imaginary gold claims after drinking in the beauties of the views which encompassed us; we snapped our kodaks repeatedly, and then, having reached the limit of our time and strength, wended our way back to the steamer now ready to sail.
And finally, when the ability to reproduce prongs is lost through age, that poor old star-fish can't get around any more, and so it dies of starvation. In Australia is prevalent a horrible disease due to an "unperfected tapeworm." Unperfected that is what they call it, I do not know why, for it transacts business just as well as if it were finished and frescoed and gilded, and all that.
She laid a wreath of little star-fish across the brown hair, a belt of small orange-crabs round the waist, buttoned the dress with violet snail-shells, and hung a tiny white pebble, like a pearl, in either ear. "Now she must have a glass and a comb in her hand, as the song says, and then she will be done," said Fancy, looking about her, well pleased.
The long ledge had many inhabitants and Sammy was soon on very good terms with a couple of jolly sea-urchins, whose round, prickly bodies were half hidden in the little holes which they had bored in the rock. The sea-urchins made him acquainted with some relations of theirs, a family of star-fish living on a flat shelf of rock near by.
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