g.
The mouth, with the five so-called teeth, is a conspicuous feature,
visible at the centre of the urchin and surrounded by the greenish spines.
Some of the starfish are covered with long spines, others are nearly
smooth. The colours are wonderfully varied,--red, purple, orange, yellow,
etc.

The stages through which these prickly skinned animals pass, before they
reach the adult state, are wonderfully curious, and only when they are
seen under the microscope can they be fully appreciated. A bolting-cloth
net drawn through some of the pools will yield thousands in many stages,
and we can take eggs of the common starfish and watch their growth in
tumblers of water. At first the egg seems nothing but a tiny round globule
of jelly, but soon a dent or depression appears on one side, which becomes
deeper and deeper until it extends to the centre of the egg-mass. It is as
if we should take a round ball of putty and gradually press our finger
into it. This pressed-in sac is a kind of primitive stomach and the
entrance is used as a mouth. After this follows a marvellous succession of
changes, form giving place to form, differing more in appearance and
structure from the five-armed starfish than a caterpillar differs from a
butterfly.

For example, when about eight days old, another mouth has formed and two
series of delicate cilia or swimming hairs wind around the creature, by
means of which it glides slowly through the water. The photographs of a
starfish of this age show the stomach with its contents, a dark rounded
mass near the lower portion of the organism. The vibrating bands which
outline the tiny animal are also visible. The delicacy of structure and
difficulty of preserving these young starfish alive make these pictures of
particular value, especially as they were taken of the living forms
swimming in their natural element. Each day and almost each hour adds to
the complexity of the little animal, lung tentacles grow out and many
other larval stages are passed through before the starfish shape is
discernible within this curious "nurse" or living, changing egg. Then the
entire mass, so elaborately evolved through so long a time, is absorbed
and the little baby star sinks to the bottom to start on its new life,
crawling around and over whatever happens in its path and feeding to
repletion on succulent oysters. It can laugh at the rage of the oysterman,
who angrily tears it in pieces, for "time heals all wounds" literal