inwardness of the proceeding. The oyster is seized between the arms of the Star-fish and held under its mouth by the aid of its suckers. Thus secured, the Asterias, or Star-fish, everts its stomach, and envelops the whole oyster in its interior recesses, distilling a poisonous fluid, a secretion from its mouth, which causes the oyster to open its shell, when the robber, as it were, crawls in and takes its dessert. Incredible numbers of oysters are destroyed by Star-fishes, but the oystermen fail to see that their own barbaric ignorance is largely to blame. Star-fishes drawn up in nets, rakes and dredges in immense quantities are tied into bundles, but the cords are made so tight that the pile is cut in twain, the result being that all the pieces, when afterwards thrown overboard, become new and perfect Star-fishes.

Not often has one the pleasure of meeting with these animals on the New Jersey coast, but yet they are occasionally seen, more frequently, perhaps, in the North. Asterias berylinus, the commoner form, is a fairly large species, of a more or less greenish color, sometimes waning to brown, and roughly covered with tubercles. Its five arms, at the extremity of each of which is situated a single red-eye speck,

are somewhat irregularly arranged, and not rarely one is stumpy through breakage or unequal development.

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 stupidlooking 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 tubefeet 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.

`ARTH-WORMS are found throughout the world. Though few in genera, and not many in species, yet they make up in individual numbers, for it has been estimated that they average about one hundred thousand to the acre. Our American species have never been monographed, which renders it impossible to judge of their probable number. Their castings may be seen on commons, so as to cover almost entirely their surface, where the soil is poor and the grass short and thin, and they are almost as numerous in some of our parks where the grass grows well and the soil appears rich. Even on the same piece of ground worms are much more frequent in some places than in others, although no visible difference in the nature of the soil is manifest. They abound in paved court-yards contiguous to houses, and on the sidewalks in country towns, and instances have been reported where they have burrowed through the floors of very damp cellars.

Beneath large trees few castings can be found during certain parts of the year, and this is apparently due to the moisture having been sucked out of the ground by the innumerable roots of the trees, an explanation which seems to be confirmed by the fact that such places may be observed covered with castings after the heavy autumnal rains. Although most coppices and woods support large numbers of worms, yet in forests of certain kinds of tree-growths, where the ground beneath is destitute of vegetation, not a casting is seen over wide reaches of ground, even during the autumn. In mountainous districts worms are mostly rare, it

would seem, a circumstance which is perhaps owing to the close proximity of the subjacent rocks, into which it is impossible for them to burrow during the winter, so as to escape being frozen. But there are some exceptions to this rule, for they have been found at great altitudes in certain parts of the world, and especially is this so in India, where they have been observed to be quite numerous upon the mountains.

Though in one sense semi-aquatic animals, like the other members of the great class of Annelids to which they belong, yet it cannot be denied that earth-worms are terrestrial creatures. Their exposure to the dry air of a room for a single night proves fatal to them, while on the other hand they have been kept alive for nearly four months completely submerged in water. During the summer, when the ground is dry, they penetrate to a great depth and cease to work, just as they do in winter when the ground is frozen. They are nocturnal in their habits, and may be seen crawling about in large numbers at night, but generally with their tails still inserted in their burrows. By the expansion of this part of the body, and with the aid of the short reflexed bristles with which they are armed inferiorly, they hold so securely that they can seldom be withdrawn from the ground without being torn in pieces. But during the day, except at the time of pairing, when those which inhabit adjoining burrows expose the greater part of their bodies for an hour or two in the early morning, they remain in their burrows. Sick individuals, whose illness is caused by the parasitic larvæ of a fly, must also be excepted, as they wander about during the day and die on the surface. Astonishing numbers of dead worms may sometimes be seen lying on the ground after a heavy rain succeeding dry weather, no less than a half-hundred in a space of a few square yards, but these are doubtless worms that were already sick, whose deaths were merely hastened by the ground being flooded, for if they had been drowned it is probable, from