The general colour of the disk is a fine rose-pink, deeper on a
circular area in the centre; the network is a deeper rose, especially
just around the bases of the knobs. The base of each ray is crossed
by a broad band of pure white, both knobs and network. The remainder
of the rays is of a pale orange-scarlet, becoming more truly scarlet
in the middle portion; the network of the same hue, but deeper. Over
the entire surface the areas of the net are occupied by series of ovate
whitish hollows, from each of which protrudes a minute clear bladder or
closed tube, exactly like those we lately saw in the little Starlet.
The madreporic plate is seen about midway between the centre and one
of the angles, as a tiny cake-shaped white body, grooved exactly like
a brain-stone.
Beneath, the rays are ploughed with a deep groove, in which are
two rows of sucker-feet; towards the tip, however, their place is
supplied by long slender pointed tentacular processes. The avenues
are bordered by flat knobs, set like the edging-stones of a garden
walk, each of which carries five or six spines radiating like a fan,
_lengthwise_. Each set sends off a branch which carries another fan
placed _transversely_, of six to ten spines. Then the white satiny
skin sends up at the very edge of the ray short stems, each bearing a
group of fifteen to twenty spines, having a tendency to a transverse
arrangement, but not in a single row. These form the edges of the
rays, seen from above and below. At the bases of the rays beneath, the
angle terminates in a broad plate, which is cut into a comb of about
eighteen flat spines, the whole having a semi-oval outline, projecting
towards the mouth. At the tip of each avenue we discern the little
scarlet eye, well protected by the crowding rows of fans.
The mouth gapes, and gives an unexpected insight into the diet of this
gaily-painted gentleman. We see a bit of an Echinus shell, and on
taking hold of it with a pair of pliers, and carefully dragging, lo!
forth comes the entire box of a Purple-tipped Urchin, nearly an inch
in diameter, empty of course, through the force of Mr. Sun’s gastric
juice, and denuded of spines. Ugh! the cannibal! to eat his own first
cousin!
We put him into a shallow pan of water, where he crawls slowly. He is
fond of curling the rays over his back, so as nearly to meet, perhaps
to have a look at the new world in which he finds himself. Then he
turns himself right over in the shallow water, bathing the under
surface in the air, the suckers moving all the time to and fro with
great rapidity, and (we fancy) with enjoyment.
Several specimens of the common Cross-fish occur, large and richly
coloured, and many of the Urchin just named; but these we can find
every day in-shore; so they are contemptuously thrown over the gunwale.