STAR-FISH, Asteriada, a family of echinodermata (q.v.) having in the center of the body a stomach with only one aperture, but extending, by two much-branched caeca, into each of the rays into which the body is divided. In some the central disk extends so as to include the rays, so that the general form is angular or lobed; in others the disk is very small in comparison with the length of the rays. Locomotion is effected by very numerous ambulacra (q.v.) placed in rows on the underside of the rays. A bony framework, of a vast number of pieces, extends to the extremity of each ray. The ner vous system has its center around the mouth, and sends a filament to each ray. Star fishes are hermaphrodite, and produce vast numbers of eggs, which are retained for a time under the body of the parent, resting on the points of its rays at the bottom of the sea, and raising up the center of the body, in order as it were to hatch them. The young are destitute of rays, and very unlike the mature form, so that their real nature was long mistaken. The mouth of star-fishes being on the under side, they seek their food—as indeed they perform all their motions—by crawling at the bot tom of the sea, or on rocks, etc. They are very voracious, and are troublesome to fishermen by devouring their bait. They possess, in a very high degree, the power of
reproducing lost members; a disk with a single ray left will reproduce the other rays and become a perfect star fish. More extraordinary is the readiness which many of them display, particularly those with long and slender rays, in breaking off these mem bers. Some species—BRITTLE STARS—can scarcely be procured for a museum in a tol erably perfect state, because they throw off ray after ray, and, in fact, break themselves to pieces upon any alarm. Star-fishes abound in the seas of all parts of the world. Almost no object is more familiar on the sea-coast of Britain than the COMAION STAR FISH, CROS&FISII, or FIVE FINGERS (Asterias or Uraster rubens), thrown up on the beach by the tide, or thrown out of fishing-boats in harbors. Some of the species are much larger; and some exhibit very beautiful colors; whilst others are interesting from their structure—the long serpent-like form of their rays, or the division of the rays by succes sive forkings, so that the whole creature is a globular mass, the surface of which is formed of a countless multitude of living tendrils.