The Arizona sentinel., 1886-03-27
THE STAR-FISH.
The Curious Habits of This Most Interest
 ing Animal.

IhE ; AR-FISH.
 The Curious Habits of This Most Interest ing Animal. No animal is more common on the sea-coast than the star-fish, andfor this reason visitors to the sea-shore are very apt to pass it by, and search for the more attractive and rare sea-anemones. But.- in doing this, they pass by one of the most interesting animals, and one which has very curious habits. Drop a star-fish into glass filled with sea water, and watch it for few moments If it happens to drop on its back, one of the five arms, which seem so rigid when taken from the water, will begin to bend, scores of small suckers will begin to fasten themselves upon the bottom of the tank, and soon the star will be right side up.
 He is restless creature when in an aquarium, and will continually rove about in search of something to eat. He moves about with a slow, regular motion, which at first seems myste- rious. There is no irregular motion, as in walking, but simply slow pro- pulsion along the bottom or up the sides of the tank, as if pushed on by some continual pressure from behind. In a moment he mounts the perpendic- ular side, and, through the transparent glass, we have an opportunity to see how he moves In the center of each arm there is a depression, and in each depression there are several rows of pure white suckers, extending from the base to the tip of the arm. These are his locomotive organs, and well do they serve the purpose. There are hundreds of them, elastic yet muscu- lar, all working at the same time to propel the creature along. One loosens its hold, stretches itself out and takes another hold an eighth of an inch further up. Others follow, and the creature moves. It is held firmly, yet at the same time is continually moving.
 How can these countless hundreds of little feet all be worked by one small being so low in the animal king dom? To do this the creature has a most wonderful arrangement not un- like system of water works. There is tank, which he has always filled with water pure and clear, and strained from all foreign particles in its passage through the brightly col ored sieve-like madrepore plate. From this tank there are five tubes, each leading into one of the arms, and from these main tubes countless numbers of small ones branch off to form the suck CTS. By filling or drawing of the water the suckers are detached, or made to cling to a surface in a manner very like boys leather sucker.
 But see, it is approaching a mussel that is hanging by its finely woven byssus to the side of the tank. Can it have designs upon this shell-fish? Straight toward it the star moves; it hears the mussel; the forward sucker touches the shell; the star hesitates moment, than moves OF faster than be- fore. One arm .has passed over the mussel, and the mouth of the star-fish is just over the center of the shell. Surely it can do no harm to this we'll
 
 small that it can not swallow the mus sel, and surely it can not bore into the hard shell.
 The star-fish has stopped, the five arms are curled around the mussel, and it is held in strong embrace. We watch the star-fsh with renewed inter- est, but all we see is the same motion less attitude, no change in position, nothing to indicate change. The star seems satisfied to remain as it is, as if at rest. Soon thin membrane encir- cles the mussel, but nothing further is seen. We revisit the aquarium at the end of an hour, and the star is in the same position; at the end of two hours there is no change; but in three hours we return to see the star-fish nestled in the darkest corner of the aquarium, while the unfortunate mussel hangs in its old position, quite dead, the shell gaping open, and numerous little shrimp feeding on the half-digested parts left by the destructive star-fish.
 What has been done? Simply this: the star-fish, unable to take the shell into its stomach, has accommodated itself to circumstances, and extended its stomach out of its mouth, and di- gested the shell-fsh with its stomach entirely outside of its body. In this silent manner hordes of star-fish in- wade oyster beds, and in single night destroy thousands. The oystermen, recognizing their destructive power, formerly had the stupid habit of cut ting every star-ish that they caught into three or four pieces and returning them to the water, not knowing that each piece had the power of reproduc- ing itself, and that, for each star thus torn into three or four pieces, two or three new individuals were formed RaLph s. Tarr, trs CopqreqationaliSt.