Each tiny sucker
at once takes hold, more and more of them touch the ground as the ray is
turned right side up, and at last the Starfish turns over, and, slowly
but surely, glides away.
[Illustration: COMMON FIVE-FINGERED STARFISH.]
Stones, shells, or rocks do not stop it. The rays slide up and over
them. If we had feet like those of the Starfish, a journey up the wall
of a house, over the roof, and down again, would be nothing to us.
Nature gives all creatures the kind of foot which suits the life they
lead. And it is hard to imagine feet more useful to the Starfish than
those wonderful sucker-feet!
Ask any fisherman what he thinks of the "harmless" Starfish, and he will
call it a pest and a nuisance. "It gets into the crab traps," he says,
"and eats all the bait. And when we are line-fishing it sucks the bait
off our hooks, and sometimes swallows hook and all." Small wonder that
Five-fingers, or Five-fingered Jack, as it is called, has no friend
among fisher-folk.
On pulling up a useless Starfish instead of a real fish, the fisherman
tears the offender in half and throws the halves back into the waves.
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