right side of the ship when the eye of the spectator is directed forward.

Star-Fish. See Asterias.

Star-Root, a gelatinous substance frequently found in fields, and supposed by the vulgar to have been produced from the meteor called a falling star; but, in reality, is the half-digested food of herons, sea-mews, and the like birds; for these birds have been found, when newly shot, to disgorge a substance of the same kind.

Star-Stone, in natural history, a name given to certain extraneous fossil stones, in form of short, and commonly somewhat crooked, columns composed of several joints, each resembling the figure of a radiated star, with a greater or smaller number of rays in the different species: they are usually found of about an inch in length, and of the thickness of a goose-quill. Some of them have five angles or rays, and others only four; and in some the angles are equidistant, while in others they are irregularly so: in some also they are short and blunt, while in others they are long, narrow, and pointed; and some have their angles very short and obtuse. The several joints in the same specimen are usually all of the same thickness; this, however, is not always the case: but in some they are larger at one end, and in others at the middle, than in any other part of the body; and some species have one of the rays bifid, so as to emulate the appearance of a five-rayed kind.

Star-Thistle, in botany. See Centaurea.

Star-Wort, in botany. See Aster.