Starfishes are carnivorous and voracious, and are particularly [pg207] destructive to oyster-beds. The animal fastens itself to a bivalve, and protrudes a part of its stomach, with which it envelops its prey and slowly sucks it out of its shell. When feeding on small mollusks they take them into the stomach directly. Starfishes regain by natural growth parts of the body which may be lost. Sometimes the animal throws off an arm to escape capture, and self-mutilation also occurs where unfavorable conditions exist. Oystermen formerly were ignorant of the starfish's wonderful powers of regeneration, and were in the habit of cutting up those captured in their forks and throwing them overboard, thus increasing the number instead of destroying their enemies, as each arm with a piece of the body attached to it will, it is said, become a new individual. This tenacity of life makes starfishes difficult to destroy, and they are exceedingly plentiful in all seas. One naturalist speaks of seeing on the coast of Maine a bed of starfishes which extended several miles and covered the bottom so closely that he picked sixty individuals off a small stone. On the northern shores of the Pacific coast they abound in great variety, and some are of unusual size. /Asterias gigantea/ of this region measures two feet across. Another species, /Phyncopodia helianthoides/, measures a yard in diameter, and has twenty or more arms. The most common species of the Atlantic coast are /Asterias vulgaris/ and /A. Forbesii/; the former ranges from Long Island northward, the latter from Massachusetts to Florida. These are the species particularly destructive to oyster-beds. /Asterias vulgaris/ sometimes grows to be fifteen inches in diameter; from this, which is perhaps the largest, are found starfishes of all sizes down to the very small /Cribrella/. They inhabit all varieties of bottoms, from low-water mark to deep water. They are not always abundant in the same place, but seem to move about. Some oystermen believe that the starfishes get into masses like a ball and are rolled along by the tide. This idea comes from the fact that an oyster-bed may be free from them one day and the next be covered by these pests. To get rid of them the beds are swept over with a tangle, which is an iron bar holding swabs of raveled rope. The spines of the starfish are caught in the [pg208] tangle, and often hundreds are brought up in one haul and are then killed by steaming.