number attached the animal turns itself round. It is not impossible, whilst walking on the sea-shore, to have the pleasure of seeing one of these star-fishes walking upon the sand. A day rarely passes without one of them being thrown upon the strand by the tide, and then abandoned by the retreating waters. Generally they are left dead; this is not always the case, however; they are sometimes only benumbed. Place them in a vase full of sea-water, or simply in a pool on the shore, and you will sometimes see them recover from this death-like condition, and execute the curious movements of progression which we have described." The motions of an Asterias thus saved form a very curious spectacle. The mouth of this animal is situated on the lower surface of the disk. At this point the constitutive pieces of the carapace leave a circular space, covered by a fibrous resistant membrane, pierced at the centre by a rounded opening. This opening is sometimes armed with hard papillæ, which play the part of teeth. The mouth almost directly abuts on the stomach, which is merely a globular sac, filling nearly all the central portion of the visceral cavity. "Thus," says Mr. Milne Edwards, "in _Asteracanthion glacialis_ the stomach is globulous, but imperfectly divided into two parts by a fold of its internal membrane; the first chamber, thus limited, appears to be more especially devoted to the transformation of the elementary matter into a liquid paste, which passes, in small portions, into the upper chamber. This is continued upward through a small intestine, and communicates laterally with five cylindrical prolongations, which each divide themselves again into two much elongated tubes, furnished with a double series of hollow branches, each terminating in a cul-de-sac." These organs advance into the interior of the rays or arms of the Asterias. Imagine, then, an animal bearing digestive tubes in its arms--the same organ serving for digestion and progression. What lessons in economy does not the study of nature teach us! The products of digestion find an absorbent surface of great extent in the rays of the Asterias. They ought necessarily to pass rapidly from it into the circumjacent nourishing fluid. The star-fishes are very voracious; they even attack mollusks which are covered with shells. M. Pouchett mentions having taken eighteen specimens of _Venus_ intact, each being six lines in length, from the stomach of one large Asterias which he dissected upon the shores of the Mediterranean. It is now even said that the star-fishes eat many oysters.