250 NATURAL SCIENCE [April 



noides. This is the earliest post-Linnaean work to which I can 

 trace the name Encrinus, here applied in the sense of Schroeter to 

 the fossil that is now universally known by that name, though 

 ascribed to Lamarck, who was forty years later. There is a full 

 description with figures of the common species usually known as 

 E. liliiformis, but no trivial name is used by Schulze. This step 

 finally removes Encrinus from all rivalry with Pcntacrinus. 



Again the fact must be emphasised that up to this time the 

 name Pentacrinus or Pentacrinite had of necessity been applied to 

 some fossil crinoid. Further, I would draw attention to the word 

 " buschel-formig " ( = fasciculate) applied to the arms of the 

 Pentacrinite ; interpreting this by the various figures given {e.g., of 

 Hiemer's Caput Medusae, 1724; plate i. in vol. iii. of Davila, 1767; 

 the Gmelin Pentacrinite in Knorr, 1755, plates xi. b and c), I sug- 

 gest that it refers to the presence of numerous armlets borne by 

 the main arm-branches, the structure seen in our type B. Ko 

 figure of a fossil crinoid of our type C is known to me before 

 1800. 



In 1761 was published the first account of a living stalked 

 crinoid, the Palmier marin, so admirably described and figured by 

 Guettard (1761), and also made known by the curious work of Don 

 Antonio Parra (1787). This was seen to have a stem formed of 

 Asteriae, and for this reason no doubt it received from Linnaeus 

 (1767) the trivial name Asteria* when he placed it erroneously in 

 the genus Isis. The discovery of this form gave the long-desired 

 explanation of the true nature of fossil Encrinites and Pentacrinites, 

 and since the species resembled the Pentacrinites more closely than 

 the Encrinites, it was by many regarded as " the true original " of 

 the former fossils. This phrase demands explanation. The old 

 naturalists regarded fossils as the representations or images of 

 beings now living on the Earth, and the living Echinus, for instance, 

 was the original of the fossil Echinite, just as a picture might be 

 the original of an engraving. Some then, among whom was the 

 learned J. E. Walch, considered the Peniacrini with cirri to be 

 imprints of an animal like the Palmier marin. The zoologists do 

 not seem altogether to have accepted this view : those who, as Ellis 

 (1762) and Lamarck (1801 and 1816) compared it with the fossils, 

 referred it to the genus Encrinus ; while Blumenbach in the various 

 editions of his " Handbuch der Naturgeschichte " (1779 onwards) 

 insisted that the Pentacrinite, though it indeed resembled the Palmier 



* P. H. Carpenter (1884) writes Pcntacrinus asterius, saying (p. 303) "the expres- 

 sion Pentacrimis asteria, used by Liitken, Thomson, and myself being a false concord ; 

 for it is evident that the etymology of Linnaeus's name Isis asteria is the adjective 

 dcTT^pLos, starry, and not the noun Asteria, cat's eye. I am indebted for this tardy 

 correction to the critical acumen of my friend. Professor F. Jeffrey Bell." I believe 

 that Asteria is a substantive in apposition, and that no question of concord of genders 

 arises. 



