BASKET a species of the genus astrophyton, or star-fish, having a most remarkable development of arms. Its body is a five-sided disk, surmounted by the numerous arms. The disk (in one specimen measured) has a diameter of 22- in.; and one of the arms is, in its entire length, 9 in., but as it lies coiled up, like a basket, it is about 8 in. across the whole. The size varies with age, but the above is about the average, many being less than half as large, and others twice as great. The upper side of the disk has 10 radial ribs bearing short, blunt spines. The mouth is on the under side, and central. It is set with spiniform bristles hiding 24 thorn-like teeth. From around the star-shaped mouth branch 5 stout arms, each of which is divided at the edge of the disk. The animal is wholly covered with au epidermis, granulated above, but smooth beneath, except that it seems to have a double line of stitches under each arm. The general color is light buff; but the inter-brachial spaces in the living animal vary from dark purple to bright pink. The constant division of each arm at regular intervals into 2 smaller ones is a most remarkable peculiarity. Each of the 5 main
branches is divided into 2, making 10 in all; each of the 10 is divided, making 20—and so indefinitely down to the least visible filament. Winthrop counted 81,920 of these "small sprouts, twigs, or threads." On capture or disturbance the creature instantly folds its arms closely about its body, shrinking from the touch like a sensitive plant, and assuming the basket shape from which it gets its familiar name. The attempt to untwist these coils generally ends in breaking the delicate, but tenacious threads. The basket fish is a voracious feeder, and its peculiar construction aids -it in taking its prey. The microscope shows each arm and spine to terminate in a minute but sharp hook. The animal, in moving, lifts itself on the extreme end of its long arms, standing, as it were, on tiptoe, so that " the ramifications form a kind of trellis-work all around it reaching to the ground, while the disk forms the roof." This latticed bower is but a trap for entangling heedless little fishes and shrimps, whose escape from those coils is as hopeless as the efforts of a fly to break loose from a spider's web.