Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/550

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■ Mr. Reaumur was very fenfible of the advantages that water infects, and animals, have over others, as to the healing of their wounds, but was refolved to try the experiment on fome land animals. The creature he firft chufe for thefe experiments was the earth-worm ; and on cutting thefe creatures afunder, though many of the pieces dried, yet he had the pleafure of feeing fome fucceed fo perfectly, that the tail part, which wanted not only the head, but alio the organs of generation of both fcxes [which in thefe animals are always both contained in the fame individual) has been feen to reproduce both thefe organs and the head, and be- come as perfect a worm as the whole was. Philof. Tranf. N° 464. Append.

§TAR-gazer, in ichthyology, the Englifh name of the ura- nofcopus. Seethe article Uranoscopus.

oTAR-y&or, the common name of a gelatinous fubftance often found lying on the furfacc of the earth, and called by fome ftar-jelly, and ftar-fallen.

The vulgar have been always of opinion, that this was produced'from that meteor which they call a falling-ftar ; others have imagined it a vegetable fubftance, and fuppofed it grew out of the earth : neither of thefe however appear, upon a clofe examination, to be the cafe, but that it is really the half-digefted food of herons, bitterns, crows, fea-mews, and coddy-moddies, principally when they have fed upon frogs or ear:h-worms.

The heads of frogs have been found whole in manes of this matter, as have alfo parts of worms ; and thefe birds, when fhot, have been found, when dying, to difgorge a fubftance of the fame kind.

It is a gelatinous fubftance, refembling a thick mucilage of gum tragacanth, and is cold to the touch. There are often yellow fpecks, and fmall clots, like grumous blood, in it. It ftinks like putrid flefh when kept, and is principally found in mifty mornings, and in wet weather in autumn, winter, and fpring. Moreto^s Northampt. p. 353. Mr. Boyle fays, he has feen this jelly refolved by digeftion only into a permanent liquor; and that a phyfician of his acquaintance extolled it as a fpecific, outwardly applied, to wens. Works Abr. Vol. \, p. 310.

SrAR-fione, ajier'ta, in- natural hiftorv, the name of a kind of extraneous foflii, of a very regular figure and ftructure, and approaching very much to the nature of the entroclii, having the fame fubftance and inner ftructure, and being much of the fame fize, though different in form : and as thofe fofiils have fragments of fhelly bodies, to which they are fome- times found affixed, and appendages like branches, or the rudiments of fuch, growing from them, fo thefe have both the one and the other; the firft called afieropodia, and the others the appendiculcs, or wires of the ajleries. ' The afieropodia, in fubftance and inner ftructure, agree per-

- fectly with the fhells of the cchinitEe, found in our chalk-

.■ pits, and with the afieries and entrochi ; thefe bodies being all compofed of obliquely-arranged plates of a tabulated fpar : they are ufually compofed of feveral joints, but they are only very imperfect fragments of the body of the animal the afieria have once been a part of; the feveral parts of which they are compofed are all convex on one fide, and concave on the other, but they arc of very different fhapes, being fometimes roundifh, fometimes oblong, often quadrangular, and not unfrequently of different numbers of angles. They have frequently two, fometimes more ridges running acrofs them, and fometimes they have tubercles, or fmall protube- rances, Handing either on their upper or under fide : they are fometimes found fuigle, but more frequently compound, or arranged into fmaller or larger parcels, being placed one over another in the manner of the tiles of a houfe, and feem truly to have been originally part of an imbricated ihell, or cruft of fome yet unknown fpecies of fea-fifli. They are in thefe compound rnafles even very evidently frag- ments, and are ufually of irregularly broken figures, though fometimes they refemble, in fome degree, parts of the rays of one or other of the kinds of ftar-Mh. They are ufu- ally found loofe from the afieries, though lying among them ; but fometimes the afieries are regularly fixed on them, juft as the entrochi on the modioli, and are plainly ken to have originally grown out of them.

The encrinos of authors is one kind of afieropodium, and has been affirmed by fome perfectly to agree in figure with a ray of the magellanic_/?rtr-fifh. This' is, however feldoni found in fuch a compound ftate ; it ufually is met with in fmgle joints, and then is what authors call the afieropodium minus, or fmall afteropodium. Hill's Hift. of Foil', p. 653. Thefe bodies are ufually of a pale bluifli grey, or afh colour ■ fometimes they are whitifh, and fometimes, though more rarely, yellowifh, or reddifh.

Having thus far defcribed the afieropodia, which feem pro- perly the bafes of the afieria, we mail be more intelligible in the account of the afieries themfelves, which are to be treated of merely as branches of them ; though, from their being much more frequent.than thefe their bafes, they arc- much more familiarly known, and ufually more regarded. 7"he afterice are fhort, and commonly fomewhat crooked an- gular columns,, compofed of feveral joints, each refembling

the figure of a radiated fiar, with a greater or fmaller num- ber of rays in the different fpecies : they are ufually found of about an inch in length, and of the thicknefs of a goofe- quill. Some of them have five angles, or rays, and others only four, and in fome the angles are cqui-diftant, while in others they are irregularly fo ; in fome alfo they are fhort and blunt, while in others they are long, narrow, and pointed ; and fome have their angles fo very fhort and ob- tufe, that at firft fight they might be taken for entrocho- afteriee. The feveral joints in the fame fpecimen are ufu- ally all of the fame thicknefs ; this however is not always the cafe, but in fome they are larger at one end, and in others at the middle, than in any other part of the body ; and fome fpecies have one of the rays bifid, fo as to emulate the appearance of a fix-rayed kind.

All the afieri<s are naturally fulcated between the angles, but this in a very different degree ; fonie are very little fo, while others are cut lb deeply, that the fingle joints of them refemble the rowels of a fpur. One end of the column is frequently found finely engraved along the edges of the an- gles, or rays, while the other end is fmooth, or nearly fo ; and the fame is often the cafe alfo in the fuigle joints. Not unfrequently, alfo, one end of a column is indented, and the other has five ftria?, running from a hollow center to the fulci between the rays.

They are found of various bignefTes and colours ; the loneeft feldom arrive, however, at two inches, and they are found of all the intermediate bignefs from this down to the length of a barley-corn : they are not unfrequently found, alfo, comprefTed and flatted, as is common to the foffils that have been formed in animal moulds.

They are ufually found bedded in the ftrata of clay, though not unfrequently in thofe of a lax fort of quarry-ftone, and fometimes in a harder, but that lefs frequently. They ufu- ally have fea-fhells, and other marine remains, lying about them ; and fometimes thefe fhells adhere to the afieries, and when feparated from them do no injury to the afieries, but themfelves fhew a mark of the figure of the body, or part of the column, when a part has been always wanting in the fhell. Had thefe fhells been ftuck into the bodies of the afte- ries, it would have been a proof that thefe fhells were the bodies firft formed, and that the matter of the afieries had been formed, or had gathered about them afterwards ; but as it is, we have by it abundant proof on the other fide of the queftion, and may plainly difcover that thefe afieries are really of marine origin ; and that however they may be al- tered in their matter or ftructure, fmce they were depofited in the earth, yet that they were really exifting in this their proper form in thofe feas, when the fhells that are found adhering to them acquired their growth. From the columns of the afieries there are fometimes pro- pagated certain fmall branches, like thofe of the entrochi; thefe are called by authors appendicules afieriarum, or the wires of the afieries.

They are compofed of feveral fhort cylindric joints, with obhquelv-truncated ends, and each hollowed to the middle, where there Hands a fmall tubercle. Thefe branches are fometimes two inches long, and the largeft or thickeft joint always adheres to the afieria, all the fucceeding ones grow- ing fmaller, and the branch taperer toward the end. In their natural fituation on the afieria, they ftand in regular circles at different diftances, one above another: there is always one wire in each of the fulci, or channels of the body, and thefe ftand evenly againft one another. Thefe wires, or appendicules, are very feldom, however, found in this their native ftate, or fixed to the bodies of the afieries ; they are commonly found broken off, and lying loofe among them, and the rudiments only of them remain- ing on the afieries, and very rarely even thefe. The wires themfelves are more frequently found wholly feparate from them, and either in fragments of different lengths, or in fingle joints, immerfed in ftone, or lying among the ftrata of clay. Hill's Hift. of Foil", p. 654.

The afieria is alfo denominated afiriies, afiroites, afirobulus y and afierifius ; by Gefner fpbragis afieros, figillum fielles, in Englifh the ftarry-fione.

The afieries may be reduced to two kinds ; the firft, thofe whofe whole bodies make the form of a ftar ; the fecond, thofe which in the whole are irregular, but which are adorn- ed, as it were, with conftellations in the parts. Dr. Lifter, for diftinction's fake, only gives the name afieria to the former fort, diftmguifhing the latter by the appella- tion of afiroites ; the other naturalifts generally ufe the two indifcriminately B. The afteria, fpoken of by the antients, appears to be this latter kind E.__[b Plott, Nat. Hift. Ox- fordfli. cap. 5. left. 16. feq. £ Merc at. Mctalloth. arm. 9. cap. 10.]

Some antient writers indeed fpeak of another more extraor- ■ dinary fpecies of afieria, or aficrites, which the fun's rays would fet on fire, and which on that account came into ufe for the compofition of philtres for kindling love. Bail. Diet. Crit. in voc. Efope, n. (A).

The quality of moving in vinegar, as if animated, is fcarce perceivable in the afiroites, but is fignal in the aftsria.

The