forcepses, immovably fixed at the base, but capable of a snapping action, certainly exist on some star- fishes; and this is intelligible if they serve, at least in part, as a means of defence.

Mr. Agassiz, to whose great kindness I am indebted for much information on the subject, informs me that there are other star- fishes, in which one of the three arms of the forceps is reduced to a support for the other two; and again, other genera in which the third arm is completely lost. In Echinoneus, the shell is described by M. Perrier as bearing two kinds of pedicellariae, one resembling those of Echinus, and the other those of Spatangus; and such cases are always interesting as affording the means of apparently sudden transitions, through the abortion of one of the two states of an organ.