starer (starer)

[ star finch (stär'finch), n. The redstart, Ruti cill a phœnicura. See first cut under redstart. starfish (stär'fish), n. 1. An echinoderm with five or more arms radiating from a central disk: applied to all the members of the Asteroidea and Ophiuroidea (see these words). These belong to the phylum Echinoderm at a, which contains also the sea-urchins, holothurians, crinoids, etc., though these are not usually called starfishes. In some of the asteroids or starfishes proper the disk is enlarged so as to take in nearly or quite the whole length of the rays, so that the resulting figure is a pentagon, or even a circle; but in such cases the stellate structure is evident on examination. Such are known as cushion - stars. In the ophiurians the reverse extreme occurs, the body being reduced to a small Brittle Starfish ( Luidia clathrata). circular central disk, with extremely long slender rays, which in some, as the euryaleans, are branched into several you sand ramifications. (See cut under basket - fish.) The commonest type of starfish has five rays; whence such are popularly known as five - fingered jack or fivefin gers. (See cuts under Asterias and Echinas ter.) Those with more than five rays are often called sun- starfish or sun-stars. (See Heliaster, and cuts under Brisinga and So laster.) The skin of starfishes is tough and leathery, and usually indurated with calcareous plates, tubercles, spines, etc. It is so brittle that starfishes readily break to pieces, sometimes shivering like gla into many fragments. This fragility is at an extreme in the ophiurians, sometimes, on this account, called brittle -stars. (See cut under As trophy ton.) Lost arms are readily replaced On the under side of the animal's rays may be observed rows of small holes; these are the ambulacra, through which protrude many small soft, fleshy proce es - the pedicels, tube-feet, or ambulacral feet - by means of which the creatures crawl about. The ambulacra converge to a central point on the under side, where is the oral opening or mouth. The animals are extremely voracious, and do great damage to oyster-beds. They abound in all seas at various depths, and some of them are familiar objects on every sea-coast. Some of the free crinoids of stellate figure are included under the name starfishes, though they are usually called lily -stars or feather -stars. Encrinites are fo il starfishes of this kind. (See cuts under Comatulidæ and by a new growth, if body of the starfish encrinite.) Very different as are the appearances superficially presented by a starfish, a sea-urchin, a holothurian, and a crinoid, their fundamental unity of structure may be easily shown. If, for instance, a common five-fingered jack should have its arms bent up over its back till they came to a center opposite the mouth, and then soldered 5907 together in that position by plates filling the spaces be tween the arms, it would make the globular or oblate spheroid figure of a sea-urchin. If a starfish should turn over on its back, and have a stem grow from the center, and then have its arms come together like the petals of a lily, it would represent a crinoid. If, again, the starfish should have its arms reduced to mere rudiments, or to tentacular appendages of an elongated leathery body, it would represent a holothurian, sea-slug, or trepang. These are the principal types of echinoderms-in fact le unlike one another than are the several stages they undergo in development, for which see Asteroidea, Bipinnaria, Brachiolaria, echinopædium, and pluteus. 2. The butter-fish or dollar-fish.-3. In her., a bearing representing a five-pointed star, the rays surrounded by short waving flames or the like, and having a small circle in the center.Brittle starfish, a brittle-star; ophiurian. - Cushion starfish, a cushion-star, as Ctenodiscus crisp at us. Serpent-starfish. Same as serpent -star. Starfish flower. See Stapelia. star-flower (stär'flou"ėr), n. A plant with bright stellate flowers. (a) Species of Trientalis, especially T. American a, the chickweed-wintergreen. ( b ) Species of the liliaceous genus Brodiæa, formerly cla ed as Triteleia, of which B. uniflora, a delicately colored free-blooming early flower from Brazil, is the spring starflower. (c) Species of Stern berg i a. (d) Any one of a few other plants.