XXXI. THE STARFISH AND SEA

URCHIN

WHY should a creature whose life is mostly in the sea have such a regular, pretty shape as that of a star?

If you ask me the question I shall answer it by another, "Why should it not?" Beauty is not something apart, but a best way for things. Look at the starfish and see if it is not well fitted for its life of crawling about. Think! it can change its wee bit of a mind and go five different ways without turning around.

At the end or tip of each arm is a little red eye which we see only when the creature is in danger. There is no need of its turning around to look. When the starfish wishes to fold its arms, or when there is food to grasp, the mouth at the center is the place to curl to, and then the star becomes a ball.

On the underside of the arms are a great many little fleshy feet which push out under its thick tough skin. On the upper side the red, orange, or crimson colors make it pretty.

As these creatures are higher than the others we have studied, we are not surprised that they have

veins carrying blood all through the body, and nerves to help them know what is worth their while to know.

Because the starfish can feel it can know danger. If you frighten it, it will draw up into a ball. If a ray gets broken another will grow. In great peril it may throw them all away and grow new ones.

The sea urchin or sea egg and the rest of the animals in the picture show traces of the star form. The sea urchin has spines all about its rough skin. It can fold them or keep them bristling. It uses them to bury itself in the sand. It can climb steep rocks, but for this it uses the fleshy feet like those of the starfishes.

When you are at the seashore ask a fisherman to bring you some baby roughskins. These spiny creatures are the first ones in the ascending scale to have different forms when they are grown up from those they had as babies. When nearly full-grown they throw away the organs used in babyhood to make room for the new ones which have grown underneath to take their place. It will interest you to watch the change from a soft hairy ball to a beautiful starfish, sea urchin or sea cucumber.

Starfishes are always hungry, and oysters are their favorite food.

XXXII. THE HOUSE FLY

WHAT has this little boarder in your home told you of itself in all the years you have been getting acquainted with it?

Nothing! Oh, yes, it has, only you have not put it into words.

We will call it up and help it tell its story, as it plays in the sunbeams, goes on its exploring tours in our rooms, or helps itself to food we thought was ours.

You think it a very troublesome visitor? Try to forget that side and look at its stripes of beautiful fawn

color, legs of golden brown, and eyes as bright as your own.

Let it call itself "I" and tell its own story:

"I was raised last winter and have just now molted, that is, changed my dress. This is what makes me so velvety and bright.

"Have you noticed my proboscis? I am sure it is a marvelous thing.

"You can't see inside? Then let me tell you. It is a soft, spongy tube that can be made long or short, held out or drawn back, just as best pleases me.

"I get all my food through it, as you must have seen; and all through it runs a muscle filled with many hairs, which are sensitive nerves. At the end are two flattened lips. In the same way that you have in your mouths a fluid that moistens your food before you swallow it, I moisten mine, and the nerves of touch and taste help me select my food.

"I am particular what I eat; if there are several things to choose from, I try them all and then go a short distance away and make my proboscis quite clean before I go back to sip from the dish I like best. "My eyes are a marvel, too, if you will excuse my saying so much of myself.

"You must have observed that I have no way of turning my head around; in place of that I have five eyes, and I have no more trouble using them than you have with two, though I only see with one at a time.

"Three of my eyes stand in a triangle on the top of my head; the other two are compound eyes, that is, they have a great many tiny single eyes joined in one. As they face in different ways I can look almost every