permission of the Curators of the Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, I was allowed to have a figure of it taken by my artist, Mr. C. M. Curtis.' Lamarck has placed the Crinoïdeans, led probably by their plant-like aspect, in the same Order with his Floating Polypes, not aware that the majority are evidently fixed, but Cuvier and most modern zoologists consider them, with more reason, as forming a family of the Stelleridans, from which the way to them is by the genus Comatula, remarkable for its jointed rays fringed on each side. The Marsupites, as Mr. Mantell, after Mr. Miller, has observed, form the link which connects the proper or pedunculated Crinoïdeans with the Stelleridans. If we com

pare them again with the class last described, the Cirripedes, especially the Lepadites, we shall find several points which they possess in common. In the first place both sit upon a footstalk, though of a different structure and substance; the animal in both, in its principal seat, is protected by shelly pieces or valves; the head or mouth in both, is surrounded by dichotomizing articulated organs, involuted, and often converging at the summit, and fringed on each side, in the Crinoïdeans, with a series of lesser digitations, and in the Cirripedes with a dense fringe of hairs. If the opinion of Mr. W. S. Mac Leay, stated above,

'PLATE III. B. FIG. 1.

2

Polypi natantes.

that some of the Echinoderms exhibit an approximation to some of the Cirripedes, is correct, as it seems to be, the Crinoideans, though still far removed, would form one of the links that concatenate them; or if their connection is thought merely analogical, the Balanites would be the analogues of the Echinidans and of the sessile Crinoïdeans, and the Lepadites of the pedunculated ones.

The following characters distinguish the Pentacrinites, to which Tribe all the known recent species belong.

Animal, consisting of an angular flexible column, composed of numerous joints, articulating by means of cartilage, and perforated for the transmission of a siphon or intestinal canal, and sending forth at intervals, in whorls, several articulated cylindrical branches, curving into a hook at their summit; fixed at its base, and supporting at its free extremity a cup-like body, containing the mouth and larger viscera, consisting of several pieces, terminating above in five (or six) dichotomizing, articulated, semi-cylindrical arms, fringed with a double series of tentacular jointed digitations, furnished below on each side with a series of minute suckers: these arms, when expanded, resemble a star of five (or six) rays, and when they converge, a pentapetalous or hexapetalous liliaceous flower. The whole animal, when alive, is supposed to be

invested with a gelatinous muscular integu

ment.

In the specimen figured by Mr Ellis, and that in the Hunterian Museum, there appear to be six arms springing from the so-called pelvis, but the natural number appears to be five, corresponding with the pentagonal column. Mr. Miller seems to be of opinion that the species described by M. Guettard, and that which he has himself figured, are the same species, and synonymous with the Isis Asteria of Linné and the Encrinus Caput Medusa of Lamarck, but to judge from the figures of the first in Parkinson,' and of the other in Miller, compared with that which is given in this work, the last seems to differ from both, as well in the pelvis, as in the dichotomies, and length of the arms; its suckers likewise appear to be circular, and not angular as they are described by Mr. Miller under the name of plates. If this observation turns out correct, I would distinguish the last species by the name of Pentacrinus Asteria.

The stem of the Crinoïdeans consists of numerous joints, united by cartilages, which exhibit several peculiarities; in the first place the upper and under side is beautifully sculptured, so as to represent a star of five rays, or a pentapetalous

1 Organic Remains, ii. t. xix. f. 1. 2 PLATE III. B. FIG. 1.

Ubi supr. 54. t. ii. ƒ. 6.

2 Crinoidea, 48. t. 1.

Ibid. FIG. 2.

flower; the Creator's object in this structure appears to be the attachment of the cartilage that connects them, and, perhaps, to afford means for a degree of rotatory motion, as well as to prevent dislocations, and also to increase the flexure of the stem according to circumstances, and the will of the animal. For the transmission of the siphon, whether a spinal chord, or intestinal canal, or both, each joint of the column is perforated, the aperture being round in some, and floriform in others. The whole stem, with its whorls of branches, exhibits a striking resemblance to the branch of the common horse-tail.1 The entire structure seems calculated to enable the animal to bend its stem, which appears very long, in any direction, like the Lepadites, and thus as it were to pursue its prey; we may suppose that the branching arms, fingers, and their lateral organs, when they are extended horizontally and all expanded, must form an ample net, far exceeding that of the Cirripedes, which, when they have their prey within its circumference, by converging their arms, and closing all their digitations, and employing their suckers, they can easily so manage as to prevent the escape of any animal included within the meshes of their net.

With regard to their functions, and what ani

mals their Creator has given a charge to them to keep within due limits, little can be known by observation; as nothing like jaws has been discovered in them, in which they differ from the Cirripedes, it should seem that either their food must consist of animalcules that require no mastication, or, if they entrap larger animals, that they must suck their juices, which seems to be Mr. Miller's opinion.1 This idea is rendered not improbable by the vast number of suckers by which their fingers, and their lateral branches or tentacles as they are called, are furnished; by these they can lay fast hold of any animal too powerful to be detained in their net by any other means, and subject it to the action of their proboscis.

From the great rarity of recent species of these animals, it should seem that the metropolis of their race is in the deepest abysses of the world of waters. "It appears," says Bosc," "that the species were extremely numerous in the ancient world, perhaps, those actually in existence are equally so, for I suspect that all inhabit the depths of the ocean, a place in which they may remain to eternity without being known to man."

Naturalists very often, too hastily, regard species as extinct, that are now found only in

'Crinoidea, 54.

2 N. D. D'Hist. Nat. x. 224.