the Caribcean Islands. 173 



cannot fail of being highly valuable to the traveller, and which may be 

 the means of making us acquainted with hosts of minute, but valuable, 

 animals, which have been hitherto passed by. 



The Agave vivipara, which grows abundantly on the barren rocks of 

 our leeward coasts, throws up to the height of twenty or twenty-five feet 

 its majestic scapus, the medulla of which I wish to recommend to notice. 



The scape, which may be found in tolerable condition nearly at all 

 times, is in perfection about November and December, and should be 

 cut down as soon as the already vegetating gemmse have fallen from the 

 column of fructification. 



It must be divided into pieces of a proper length, and when deprived 

 of its hard woody bark, sawn into slices of the thickness of half an inch, 

 •and carefully dried in an oven. The slices are then to be neatly cut and 

 squared with a knife ground on a coarse stone, and to be smoothed with 

 pumice, when they are ready to be glued in the box and papered. 



Thin slices at the back of which the bark has been left, form admira- 

 ble razor-straps ; and unslit portions of the pith, which often attains a 

 diameter of three inches, may be used as stoppers for wide-mouthed bot- 

 tles. It certainly does not possess all the firmness and elasticity of cork, 

 but from the total absence of cavities, it is in some respects superior. , ^ 



Notice of the discovery of a recent Encrinus. • 



From the mutilated state of the recent Pentacrinites discovered in th^ 

 Caribsean Seas, it has been impossible to ascertain whether they were 

 attached by the base to rocks, or were capable of locomotion, which the 

 length of the pillar in some of these animals might seem to render un- 

 necessary. The accidental capture of a small, but perfect Encrinus, 

 has enabled me to settle this point, and has confirmed the suspicion 

 which has been entertained of late, that the species of the tribe Crinoi- 

 dea are allied to that division of the Linnean Asteriadm which have di- 

 chotomous and multi-articulate arms. 



The sessile genera of the Crinoidea differ from these, in possessing 

 clasping organs of motion f Ambulacra) independent of the arms for 

 entangling the prey ;* and those genera which are furnished with amulti- 



* It would be very desirable, by breaking a single arm, to examine the spe- 

 cimen of Alecto horrida, which Dr. Leach described in the Zoological Miscel- 



