MONOGRAPH OF THE EXISTING CRINOIDS. 755 



It was also partially soluble in ether, the solution showing a faint antedonin 

 spectrum. Hydrochloric acid changed the red color to yellow ; caustic soda intensi- 

 fied the color, and then a feeble shading was seen close to D ; ammonia produced 

 the same change. 



Comatella stettigera. This gave a yellowish solution which on evaporation in 

 a vacuum left a yellowish brown residue, soluble in rectified spirits with a yellow 

 color; this absorbed the violet, but showed no bands. Hydrochloric acid left the 

 color of the solution unchanged ; with caustic potash it became a brownish yellow, 

 but showed no bands. The residue failed to give the lipochrome reactions. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE RECENT CIIINOIDS. 



Economically the crinoids serve no useful purpose at least up to now they 

 have been put to none. They can not be eaten, and they are not eaten by any fish 

 or other animal that serves as human food. 



Owing to their ordinarily fixed mode of life it is possible that they might be 

 used to furnish an index of the density of the finer plankton content of the water 

 in which they live, though it is probable that other more generally distributed 

 animals with more or less similar feeding habits would serve this purpose better. 



Because of their beauty and delicacy of form, as well as on account of their 

 rarity, they are frequently preserved and offered for sale as curios in Japan and 

 China, and, less frequently, in India, Oceania, Australia, and the West Indies. 



In southern Japan crinoids are frequently brought up on the long lines used 

 for fishing in deep water in Sagami Bay. The unstalked crinoids, because of 

 their beauty and delicacy of form, are called " komachi " a name originally borne 

 by an exceptionally well-favored lady of the court upward of a thousand years 

 ago while the stalked form (Metacrinus rotundus) is known as the "bird's foot." 

 The former when well preserved are sometimes sold as curios, while the latter 

 always meet with a ready sale at extraordinarily high prices on account of their 

 rarity, combined with their palseontological interest. 



In China comatulids are sometimes offered for sale which have been brought 

 from a considerable distance. 



At Barbados the local species of Isocrinus, especially /. asteria, and Holopus 

 rangii, are occasionally to be found in the curio shops. 



Among the Slavic peoples red is the color about which all their abstract ideas of 

 beauty, and hence of idealism, revolve. The delicate and often gorgeously colored 

 red Adriatic Feather Star (Antedon adriatica) occurs more or less abundantly 

 along the coasts of the largely slavic provinces of Istria and Dalmatia, where it is 

 frequently found in the fishermen's nets and is sometimes brought up on their 

 hooks. Its beauty of form, and particularly its red color, especially commend it 

 to the local fishermen, who commonly take it to market and exhibit it along with 

 the fish offered for sale. 



