Page:Sea and River-side Rambles in Victoria.djvu/28

9 uninjured, well-stoppered, and with its inhabitants none the worse for their trip back to their native element, was our lost one; this inspired us with fresh vigour, and not finding much that we cared for on the beach, we set to examining the huge Kelp roots, and they were well worthy of it, as the keener eyes of our fellow-labourer soon detected. We had but a moment since been recalling poor Forbes' amusing account of his suicidal Starfish, (Luidia), (see his "British Starfishes," page 138), and we had an illustration of it with an Ophiurus, also a Starfish, but so named from the lizard-like appearance of its arms, which we had turned out from one of those same densely-matted kelp-roots;—off went first the extremity of one arm, as it lay in our hand,—then, with an impudent twist, the smallest bit in life of another, whilst horror-stricken we called hastily for a collecting-box to receive him, or rather all that was left of him,—little enough indeed,—since all that was secured entire was his disk, and on a glass-jar on our mantel-piece he wandered for many weeks amidst his rejected members, which still maintained their vitality, frequently protruding their suckers. Sir John Dalyell mentions having picked up a single ray of a Starfish, which in a few days reproduced four additional ones, all smaller than the original, but this after a time dropped off, leaving the animal more perfectly symmetrical, and the renovated creature entered vigorously on its new career.

But let us examine these suckers more closely, since they seem to act pretty much in the same manner as the leather toy we, as school-boys, amused ourselves