=The food= of starfish consists of such animals as crabs, snails, and oysters. When the prey is too large to be taken into the mouth, the starfish _turns its stomach inside out_ over the prey (Fig. 59). After the shells separate, the stomach is applied to the soft digestible parts. After the animal is eaten, the stomach is retracted. This odd way of eating is very economical to its digestive powers, for _only that part of the food which can be digested and absorbed is taken into the body_. Only the lower part of the stomach is wide and extensible. The upper portion (next to the aboral surface) is not so wide. This portion receives the secretion from five pairs of digestive glands, a pair of which is situated in each ray. Jaws and teeth are absent. (Why?) The vent is sometimes wanting. Why? [Illustration: FIG. 59.--Starfish eating a sea snail. _b_, stomach everted.] =Reproduction.=--There is a pair of ovaries at the base of each ray of the female starfish (Fig. 58). The spermaries of the male have the same position and form as the ovaries, but they are lighter colored, usually white.[2] [2] The sperm cells and egg cells are poured out into the water by the adults, and the sperm cell, which, like all sperm cells, has a vibratory, tail-like flagellum to propel it, reaches and fertilizes the egg cell. =Regeneration after Mutilation.=--If a starfish loses one or more rays, they are replaced by growth. Only a very ignorant oyster-man, angry at the depredations of starfish upon his oyster beds, would chop starfish to pieces, as this only serves to multiply them. This power simulates multiplication by division in the simplest animals. =Steps in Advance of Lower Branches.=--The starfish and other echinodermata have a more developed nervous system, sensory organs, and digestion, than forms previously studied; most distinctive of all, they have a body cavity distinct from the food cavity. The digestive glands, reproductive glands, and the fluid which serves imperfectly for blood, are in the body cavity. There is no heart or blood vessels. The motions of the stomach and the bending of the rays give motion to this fluid in the body cavity. It cannot be called blood, but it contains white blood corpuscles. [Illustration: FIG. 60.--Young starfish crawling upon their mother. (Challenger Reports.)] The starfish when first hatched is an actively swimming bilateral animal, but it soon becomes starlike (Fig. 60). The limy plates of the starfish belong neither to the outer nor inner layer (endoderm and ectoderm) of the body wall, but to a third or middle layer (mesoderm); for echinoderms, like the polyps, belong to the three-layered animals. In this its skeleton differs from the shell of a crawfish, which is formed by the hardening of the skin itself. =Protective Coloration.=--Starfish are brown or yellow. This makes them inconspicuous on the brown rocks or yellow sands of the seashore. This is an example of protective coloration. THE SEA URCHIN