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All these beautiful creatures, as well as the living coral that nestles in the bosom of the warm Mediterranean or the sea that lashes our Southern shores, or that struggles boldly against Pacific’s waves, are lasso-throwers. Cœlenterata, the “hollow-bodied animals,” because of the large cavity within their bodies, is the name by which they are known to science. They naturally fall into two families, the Hydrozoa, or Water Animals, and the Actinizoa, or Ray-like Animals, our little Hydra, about which so much has been written, being representative of the former and the Anemones of the latter division.

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Quite as infinite in number, variety and form is the life of the sea as that of the land. But of all marine animals, however, there is none more curious than the echinoderm, a name derived by science from two Greek words, indicating an animal bristling with spines like the hedgehog. These creatures are sometimes free, but quite as often attached by a stem, flexible or otherwise, and radiate after the fashion of a circle or star, or are of the form of a star, with more or less elongated arms. They are covered with shell-like plates, which they secrete for themselves, and are still further protected by spines or scales.