The St. Johns herald., 1891-12-03
A COMPLEX CREATURE.
Some of the Remarkable Traits of the
 Cfarfish

Starfish.
 'The attack of a starfsh upon ali oyster may be hlened to an assault by organized conspirators, inasmuch as each of these fve-fngered animals is composed of five distinct individuals" said a scientist to a Washington Star man. "Each of the starfsh's five arms has it's own mind, nervous system and thoughts, such as they are, and all five nerve systems simply meet in the cen ter where the arms are joined. Thus it may be said that the mental guidance of this complex creature and the man. agement of it's affairs are intrusted to board of five members, who have com munication with each other, but act without the intcrmediation of a pre- siding officer. Now, is it not wonder ful that such quintet should be able to manage it's affairs so well and with such agreement of purpose in every thing? Supposing that each of the five individuals attempted to go where it listed without giving any heed to the others, the animal could not reach a choice bit of food, espied from afar with the eye of one of its members, nor travel in any direction with purpose in view. But as a matter of fact, proved by observation, when starfsh is spying for food it lifts the end of it's five arms so that the eye beneath each extremity may get view of things in the neighborhood, and if any object worth going after is discovered all the many hundreds of sucker-like feet beneath the five arms are seen to push out together in the direction of the morsel desired. There is a unity of in tention among the partners that im- plies un1nistakably a conscious sharing of aim and design. The same thing is shown by the way many starfshes have of letting themselves drop from steep rocks and cliffs in order to save the trouble of laborious climbing down. In such cases, before they relinquish their hold and drop, they let go with three or four arms, holding fast until the last moment with the remaining, as if to calculate the leap.
 ''My observations on this subject have inclined me to think that matters of concerted action with starfsh have not infrequently to be effected by first obtaining the assent of an individual ray that is willing. It is known that these creatures sometimes divide them selves voluntarily into three-armed and two-armcd portion, which may be regarded as the violent dissolution of business and domestic relations once happy, but grown inharmonious. A starfish will often cast off one of its arms and leave it behind, perhaps be- cause the member is not found agree able to live with. If rubber band or string is fastened around an arm of one of these animals and it cannot push the annoyance off with it's other arms the starfsh will throw the troublesome arm away, not desiring to retain the companionship of such cripple. Star fish are like human beings in many ways. Then the animal which has thus deprived itself of ray grows new one in place of the old.
 ''As for the arm that is dropped it promptly proceeds to grow four new arms, thus becoming a whole starfsh itself. Being the biggest it is pre- sumably for long time the boss of the five, which must be gratifying. A few years ago people who caught starfsh in in the oyster beds destroyed them, as they thought, by cutting them in halves and throwing them overheard, but the process was not very effective, inas- much as everyone thus treated prompt ly becomes two"