76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



arises — Did these slender and minute structures build the fabric 

 they present, and live on stems of Crinoids; or is their condition 

 an accidental phenomenon by mere temporary adhesion or contact 1 ? 



V. Vermilia minuta, Brown. These fabricless inhabitants 

 of ancient oceans, in their shadowy shrouds might excite the 

 imagination and please the visionary in his dreams. Did they 

 perform any significant or important office? 



To smooth, unworn Crinoids — not to the tattered and torn, like 

 faint images in a mirror, scarcely more substantial — they seem to 

 have clung, and, martyr-like, performed their last wriggle, not after 

 any pattern, but variously; and like man, have fulfilled their 

 allotted span in the same space in history — they lived — they died. 



VI. Crania quadrata, M'Coy. In the sediments of the old 

 seas the broken and dismembered stems of a Crinoid were the 

 special throne of the Crania, although other debris was not 

 rejected. The attached valve is generally almost exclusively found 

 on these stems. If it were important, the proportion might be 

 vaguely ascertained. In 30 instances, for example, attached to 

 well-preserved fragmentary Crinoids — not to worn or abraded 

 fragments — 2S present the attached valve, and only 2 specimens of 

 both valves. In the majority of examples little is left of the 

 shelly matter, and one is left involved in a web of Stenojwra tumida. 

 Of the free valve, on a small stem, two examples occur; one 

 evidently bearing the free valve compressed; another specimen, 

 deemed very rare, has during life been encroached on by an 

 enlarging basal portion of Crinoid, or the union of several, and 

 would have been covered had not the vital energy of the first 

 occupant apparently necessitated a deviation from the common 

 plan by continued and forcible resistance, causing the Crinoid to 

 disperse its required structure on either side, free of the living 

 Crania — which nevertheless perished, as it would seem, through its 

 confined and restricted action and growth. The phenomenon is 

 unique as far as known. 



VII. Discina nitida, Lamarck. On a fragment of stem of a 

 Crinoid only one Discina (with both valves), indifferently preserved,, 

 has been seen, and, consequently, in this connection, it must be 

 found rarely. It is, however, by no means rare, and is often 

 found in small ironstone nodules beautifully preserved. It is 

 found, also, on shells, sometimes in groups. 



As light dawned the original stock of organic substances, long 



