ASTERIA, in Zoology, a name by which some
authors have called the falco palumbarius, or goshawk.
See FALCO, ORNITHOLOGY Index.
ASTERIA is also the name of a gem, usually called
the cat's eye, or oculus cati. It is a very singular and
very beautiful stone, and somewhat approaches to the
nature of the opal, in having a bright included colour,
which seems to be lodged deep in the body of the stone,
and shifts about, as it is moved, in various directions;
but it differs from the opal in all other particulars,
especially in its want of the great variety of colours seen
in that gem, and in its superior hardness. It is usually
found between the size of a pea and the breadth of a
sixpence; is almost always of a semicircular form, broad
and flat at the bottom, and rounded and convex at the
top; and is naturally smooth and polished. It has on-
ly two colours, a pale brown and a white; the brown
seeming the ground, and the white playing about in
it, as the fire colour in the opal. It is considerably
hard, and will take a fine polish, but is usually worn
with its native shape and smoothness. It is found in
the East and West Indies, and in Europe. The island
of Borneo affords some very fine ones, but they are
usually small; they are very common in the sands of
rivers in New Spain; and in Bohemia they are not un-
frequently found immersed in the same masses of Jasper
with the opal.
ASTERIA is also the name of an extraneous fossil,
called in English the star-stone. The fossils are small,
short, angular, or falcated columns, between one and
two inches long, and seldom above a third of an inch
in diameter: composed of several regular joints; when
separated, each resembles a radiated star. They are,
not without reason, supposed to be a part of some sea-
fish petrified, probably the asterias or sea-star. The asteria
is also called asfrites, astroites, and asteriscus. They
may be reduced to two kinds: those whose whole bod-
ies make the form of a star; and those which in the
whole are irregular, but are adorned as it were with
constellations in the parts. Dr Lister, for distinction's
sake, only gives the name asteria to the former sort,
distinguishing the latter by the appellation of astroites;
other naturalists generally use the two indiscrimi-
nately. The asteria spoken of by the ancients, appears
to be of this latter kind. The quality of moving in
vinegar, as if animated, is scarce perceivable in the
astroites, but is signal in the asteria. The former must
be broken in small pieces before it will move; but the
latter will move, not only in a whole joint, but in two
or three knit together. The curious frequently meet
with these stones in many parts of England: at Cleve-
don in Oxfordshire they are found rather larger than
common, but of a softer substance; for, on being left a
small space of time in a strong acid, they may easily be
separated at the joints in small plates.