ysters
are the same way."

"Exactly. Now what happens is this. The starfish crawls along until he
finds an oyster which he thinks will suit his taste. As he crawls near
or on it, the oyster closes up tight. The starfish--taking plenty of
time--fastens himself to the shell, having two of his 'arms' on one
shell and the suckers of the other three 'arms' attached to the other
shell. Then the starfish starts to pull."

"But isn't the oyster stronger?"

"Much stronger," agreed the director, "but the starfish doesn't know
enough to quit. The pull he exerts is not so powerful but it is
relentless and unceasing and no oyster muscle can resist it for more
than a few hours. Presently the shell gapes open. The starfish lumbers
over and commences to feed, other starfish often coming to enjoy the
feast."

"And are there starfish enough to injure the beds?"

"Myriads of them. A starfish is not easy to kill, moreover, because if
any of the arms are cut off he will grow a new one."

"How do the oystermen fight them?"

"By catching them in tangles. The snarled cotton waste does no harm to
the oyster, but, as it is pulled over the bed, picks up hundreds of
starfish and sea-urchins. Up-to-date vessels engaged in that work have a
vat of boiling water on deck, into which the tangle is plunged when it
is pulled up from the bottom. This kills the starfish and is a great
gain over the old system of picking them out of the tangle by hand.

"But the worst of all the oyster's enemies," the director continued,
"and the one on which I am working, is the oyster-drill. At least eighty
per cent of the possible oyster crop is destroyed by this sea-snail.
This creature, usually about half an inch long, crawls on an
oyster--usually a young one--and with a rasp-like tongue files a hole in
the shell, through which it sucks the juices out of the oyster. The only
thing that keeps the oyster-drill in check at all is that as soon as it
is big enough for a younger drill to climb on its shell, it is apt to
suffer the same fate. It is a case of reversed cannibalism, the stronger
falling to the weaker."

"What can be done to stop it?"

"Nothing so far," said the director; "that is my chosen problem. Because
the drill prefers the thin-shelled mussel to the thicker-shelled oyster
it has been suggested that mussels should be planted outside
oyster-beds, so that the drills would stay there. But the cure would be
worse than the disease, for the mussels wou