ROSY CRIBELLA. 



107 



zoologist and botanist it seemed a land of promise. Several 

 times the Emerald Isle has been threatened with an in- 

 vasion of English and Scottish philosophers, who have long- 

 been fully convinced in their own minds, that there is a 

 great deal more in the Hibernian bogs than meets the 

 eyes of Irishmen. The botanists actually invaded the 

 sister country one year, determined to find out the undis- 

 covered riches of this El Dorado of Nature, with what 

 success we leave them to say : still, they retain their hopes. 

 But the zoologists are yet more sanguine ; and even in the 

 year 1840 one of our most eminent styles the land of St. 

 Patrick " that very interesting, but little investigated 

 country ."" Yet all this time Ireland abounds in naturalists, 

 true field-philosophers, whose only bad habit is the modesty 

 which prevents them publishing their discoveries, too often, 

 until some less retiring students of nature proclaim new 

 facts and new animals, which should have been recorded 

 long before. England and Scotland conjoined can scarcely 

 show as many zoologists engaged in original and practical 

 observation of their marine invertebrate animals as Ireland ; 

 and a great part of the additions during late years to that 

 division of the British Fauna has come from the sister 

 country. Among those, not one of the least beautiful is 

 the pretty Starfish which I am about to describe. 



The Cribetta rosea has five rounded tapering rays, which 

 are each four and a half times as long as the disk is broad. 

 The upper surface and sides of the arms and disk are 

 covered with triangular reticulating spiniferous tubercles, 

 which on the arms are arranged in regular longitudinal 

 rows, and are more distant from each other than in the 

 last species. The spines crowning these tubercles are short, 

 rough, blunt, and very numerous. The spaces between 

 the reticulations are porous. Beneath, the avenues are 



