Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/333

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STARGARD devour all kinds of garbage which would other- wise accumulate on the shores; they eat also living crustaceans, mollusks, and even small fish, and are believed to be very destructive to oysters ; they are not used as food by man, but are in many places highly esteemed as ma- nure. For a popular account of the British species, see " History of British Starfishes," by Edward Forbes (London, 1841). For the New England species, see the recently pub- "ished works of Agassiz. The common star ish of the North American coast (asterias ins, Lam.), generally considered the same the European species, is too well known to iced description; the colors vary from red- lish to yellowish, and the diameter from an STARK 321 Common Star Fish (Asterias rubens). inch to more than a foot. The star fishes are found from the Trenton limestone of the low- er Silurian epoch down to the present time. STARGARD. I. A town of Prussia, in the province of Pomerania, on the Ihna, navigable by ships, 21 m. E. by S. of Stettin ; pop. in 1871, 17,280. It has a Protestant Gothic church, built in the 14th century. It was formerly the capital of Further Pomerania. II. Prens- sisch Stargard, a town in the province of Prus- sia, on the Ferse, 25 m. S. by W. of Dantzic ; pop. in 1871, 5,822. It is surrounded by walls and towers, and was frequently taken by the Poles in the 15th and 16th centuries, and in 1655 by the Swedes. STARGAZER, a spiny-rayed percoid fish of the family trachinida or weevers, and genus uranoscopus (Linn.), so called from the position of the eyes, which look directly upward. The body is elongated, covered with smooth cycloid scales ; head depressed, large and wide, bony and rough, with the gape ascending or verti- cally cleft, the upper jaw the shorter, and the teeth small and crowded on the jaws, palate, and vomer ; branchiostegal rays six ; dorsals two, of which the first is small and spinous, the second and the anal long ; ventrals in front of the large pectorals and on the throat ; anus very far forward ; air bladder absent. In some of the family the dorsal and opercular spines are capable of inflicting painful wounds ; they Mediterranean Stargazer (Uranoscopus vulgaris). have the power of raising the eyeballs from and retracting them within their sockets. There are more than a dozen species of the genus, mostly East Indian, of which the best known is the U. vulgaris of the Mediterranean, about a foot long, grayish brown above, with irregu- lar series of whitish spots and grayish white below ; ugly as it is, some people eat it. This was well known to the ancients, and Aristotle correctly describes the gall bladder as larger than in most other fishes ; it is also called callionymus by the old authors, and is pro- verbially referred to by dramatic writers as the emblem of an angry man. On the coast of South Carolina has been found the U. ano- plos (Cuv.), about 2 in. long, greenish above with minute black dots, and silvery below ; the cheeks are unarmed. These fishes live on the bottom in deep water, burying all but the head in the sand or mud, and there lying in wait for prey ; they are voracious, and like other ground fish some have sensitive barbels about the mouth ; though the gills are widely open, they live a long time out of water; some have a slender fleshy filament in front of the tongue, which can be protruded. STARR. I. A N. E. county of Ohio, drained by the Tuscarawas river and its branches, and traversed by the Ohio canal and several rail- roads; area, 570 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 52,508. The surface is undulating and the soil a rich sandy loam. Coal and limestone are abundant. The chief productions in 1873 were 686,418 bushels of wheat, 1,044,317 of Indian corn, 732,897 of oats, 42,376 of barley, 116,597 of potatoes, 44,507 tons of hay, 287,750 Ibs. of flax, 246,893 of wool, 932,779 of butter, and 88,705 of cheese. Large quantities of coal and iron are produced. In 1874 there were 13,595 horses, 29,219 cattle, 69,387 sheep, and 25,421 hogs. In 1870 there were 22 manufactories of agricultural implements, 12 of brick, 22 of car- riages and wagons, 12 of furniture, 1 of forged and rolled iron, 3 of pig iron, 20 of iron cast-