All the true Star-Fishes, the _Asteriæ_, have the body divided into rays, like a star, and are furnished with sucking feet, or _cirrhi_, which are tubular, and filled with water. The internal structure of these creatures is very intricate and beautiful, and the skeleton of almost any kind offers the appearance of that of some exquisitely symmetrical flower. There are fourteen British species of Star-Fish, the finest being the Sun-Star, _Solaster papposa_, the disk, surrounded with twelve or thirteen rays, varying in colour from scarlet to deep purple, the rays being sometimes of a different colour. The _Luidia fragilissima_ is also a large kind, sometimes two feet across, which is peculiar to the British shores. It possesses the peculiar faculty of breaking itself into fragments when enraged or captured; and, in a work by the lamented Professor Forbes, there is a very graphic and facetious account of a specimen that escaped him in a very determined way by a suicide of this kind. [Illustration: PLATE VI. 1. Edwardsia vestita. 2 & 3. Geniaster equestres. 4. Cribella oculata. 5. Asterina gibbosa. 6. Palmipes membranaceus. 7. Palæmon serratus.] Stars of this class, having the power to dislocate their structure, are popularly known as brittle Stars. Some affect to consider this faculty not so very wonderful; but let such suppose for a moment some higher animal—a man, for instance—gifted with a capacity for exploding his trunk and limbs into moderately-sized fragments—into joints, as a butcher would say—at any slight provocation, and then the character of such a power would appear very sufficiently extraordinary. It is possible that the fragments of the disruptured Star-Fish have the power, in each separate fragment, of renewing the absent portions, and that each portion thus becomes a perfect fish, the dissevered portions having been noticed to retain their vitality long after their separation. We know that the little Garden Lizard has the power of dislocating his tail without effort, and leaving it between the thumb and finger, when he is playfully caught by that appendage; and, also, that he has the power of renewing his caudal extremity within a very short period. It is thought, therefore, not impossible, reasoning by analogy, that the Star-Fish may possess powers of a similar kind, of a somewhat more extensive character. The Amnion Star-Fish, called sometimes Five-fingered (_Asterias rubens_), belongs to the division _Echinodermata_, that is, skinned like the Hedgehog. The Sea-Egg, Sea-Urchin, or Egg-Urchin, as it is sometimes called, belongs also to the _Echinodermata_, or Hedgehog-skinned class, and form interesting objects in the Aquarium; the flat species exhibiting much more evidently their close affinity to the Star-Fish tribe, than those of the more common spherical form.