When a Star-fish is alarmed, or finds itself in strange quarters, it will be seen to curl up the tips of its rays, and there under the point of each ray will be found a thick red spot seated on the extremity of a nerve, and having in it as many as from one hundred to two hundred crystal lenses surrounded by red cells. With such a highly-developed eye, which is far better than the jelly-fish enjoys, it is no wonder that the Star-fish is so quick in discerning food, or enrages the fisherman by the discovery of the bait which he had intended for other animals, for it turns out that this stupid-looking animal is more wide-awake than it is given credit for. Sometimes, as in the beautifully delicate Star-fish, called the “Lingthorn,” a soft lid, or feeler, hangs over the eye-spot, which gives to the creature a curiously intelligent look, but in the case of our common form this lid is notably absent. From all that has been written it must be evident that our first walking animal is by no means a poor or feeble creature. He has a chain armor woven into his leathery skin, with sharp, pointed spines, and snapping, beak-like claws to protect him; an excellent digestion and a capacious mouth to feed his greedy stomach, and a fine array of nerves, quick feeling and eyesight, and a wonderful apparatus for moving over the ground. When it is added to all these possessions the ability to close over the wound in the case of a lost ray and the growing of a new one, we see that his powers of living satisfactorily are by no means insignificant. But this curious walking apparatus of the Star-fish is far from being perfect in all his relations. They do not all walk by means of suckers any more than all sponge-animals build toilet sponge, or all slime-animals make chambered shells. Sure, the Rosy Feather-stars, for example, have no use for feet-tubes, as their lives are generally spent upon the rocks or nestled in bunches of sea-weed. Brittle-stars, as these are called, though closely related to the Star-fishes, are not easily confounded with them, for their arms are found to radiate from a clearly defined central disk, and there is no prolongation of their stomachs and ovaries into their interiors. The tube-feet pass out from the plates along the sides of the arms, instead of from the under surface as in the Star-fishes proper, and probably serve merely as a help for breathing, locomotion over the sands being effected by their long flexible arms. Their home is chiefly among the tangle and eel-grass, where their protecting covering affords them security from their many enemies. EARTH-WORMS IN HISTORY.