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All possible gradations, as he adds, may likewise be found between the pedicellariae of the star-fishes and the hooks of the Ophiurians, another group of the Echinodermata; and again between the pedicellariae of sea-urchins and the anchors of the Holothuriae, also belonging to the same great class.
Thus every gradation, from an ordinary fixed spine to a fixed pedicellariae, would be of service. In certain genera of star-fishes these organs, instead of being fixed or borne on an immovable support, are placed on the summit of a flexible and muscular, though short, stem; and in this case they probably subserve some additional function besides defence.
The star-fishes proved very agreeable companions, being both polite and pretty. They had lovely orange colored backs, out of which protruded their five arms, or rays, giving them the star-like appearance from which they get their name. Under these rays were rows of tiny feelers, or suckers which they used as feet.
In certain star-fishes, small depressions in the layer of pigment-cells are filled with transparent gelatinous matter projecting with a convex surface like a rudimentary cornea, and this, it has been suggested, may serve, not only to form an image, but to concentrate the luminous rays.
But when Andy smilingly assured them that he was going over to call on Take-Notice's girl, and asked them if they wouldn't like to come along and be introduced, and taste a ripe olive, and look at the star-fishes, and smell a crumpled leaf of bay, they backed figuratively from the wiles of him and asserted more or less emphatically he couldn't work them.
Its color is sometimes purple, sometimes red, with white rays tipped with red; truly a gorgeous creature, and no doubt very vain of his wonderful beauty! All star-fishes have mouths and stomachs, which they put to good use, being exceedingly fond of oysters, and such like, which they suck out of their shells when opportunity offers.
But the rarer forms of Actinias, Star-fishes, Sepioles, Madrepores, Annelidae, and Zoophytes, of a thousand shapes, live on the bottom, in deep water, and must be captured there. For this purpose we must dredge from a boat, under sail. The naturalist's dredge is an improved oyster-dredge, with each of the two long sides of the mouth made into a scraping lip of iron.
Look at the Crinoids, or stalked star-fishes, the "Lilies of living stone," which swarmed in the ancient seas, in vast variety, and in such numbers that whole beds of limestone are composed of their disjointed fragments; but which have vanished out of our modern seas, we know not why, till, a few years since, almost the only known living species was the exquisite and rare Pentacrinus asteria, from deep water off the Windward Isles of the West Indies.
Furnished with these facts, it is not difficult to recognize true beroidal forms in the embryos of sea-urchins and star-fishes, published by Muller in his beautiful plates, and thus to trace the medusoid origin of the echinoderms, as the polypoid origin of the medusae has already been recognized.
In an old closet were some seashells and coral-fans, and dried star-fishes and sea, horses, and a natural mummy of a rough-skinned dogfish. She had not thought of them for years, but now she felt impelled to look after them.
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