DEVELOPMENT OF AMEDON (COMATULA, LAMK.) KOSACEUS. G75 



bianco to a Starfish. The descriptions of Aoricola were repeated by Conrad Gesxer', who 

 gave a figur(> of a portion of the stem oi Pentacriniis hriarens under the name oiAstericiy 

 and of a portion of the stem of Encrinxs Uliiformis under that of Entrochis; like his 

 predecessor, moreover, approximating the Crinoids to the "lapides judici" (fossil spines. 

 of Ecliiui) and to Bclemnitcs. Xo advance seems to have been made in tlie knowledge 

 of the CKixoiDEA until 16G9, when Laciimund" for the first time figured a complete 

 specimen of Encrinus Uliiformis under the name Pentagonos, and showed that the 

 Entrochi and Trochifes were really parts of the same organism. Better figures of the 

 summits of some palaeozoic Crinoidea were soon afterwards given by Martix Lister iu 

 his " Description of certain stones figured like plants, and by some observing men 

 esteemed to be plants petrified"^: but having unfortunately adopted the erroneous 

 notion that the Crinoids wore the fossil remains of Plants which had lived at a great 

 depth in the sea, he was led to regard the body of the Crinoid as the base of the stem, 

 and its arms as ramifications of the roots. Two years afterwards Lister published 

 figures of some stems of Pentacriniis*, which also he regarded as representing marine 

 plants. And not long subsequently he was followed by BEAUiiONT', who described and 

 figured some additional types of palteozoic Crinoidea under the name of " rock-plants 

 growing in the lead mines of Mendip Hills." 



It was under the influence of such misconceptions on the part of the best-informed 

 Naturalists of the time, — as well as of the doctrine still prevalent among the less instructed, 

 that fossils arc nothing else than " curiously figured stones" deriving their peculiar 

 shapes from some '• plastic virtue latent in the earth," — that the researches of Lluuyd 

 upon the fossil Crinoidea were commenced ; and it is therefore very much to his credit 

 that he should have made such an important step in advance, as not only to refer these 

 remains to the same group with the Sea-stars, but also to fix upon tliat particular 

 Sea-star which we now know under the name Antcdon, as the type to which they are 

 most nearly allied. As this fact has been entirely ignored by the recent historians of 

 this department of Pahtontology, MM. de Koninck and le Hon" (to whose labours I 



' Dc Rerum Fossiliiim, lapidum et gemmanim maximt-, figuiis ct sirailitudiuibiis liber. Tir/un, 1.56.5. 



- Orj'etograpbia Hildesheimeiisis, pages oS, 59. ' Philosophical Transactions, Xo. 100 (1G73). 



* " A letter containing bis observations of tbc Astroitcs or Star-Stones," in Philosophical Transactions, 

 Xo. 112 (1G75). 



' Philosophical Transactions, No. 129 (1CS2), and Xo. 150 (1683). 



' Rccberchos sur les Crinoides du Terrain Carbouifcre dc la Bclgique. Bru.reJles-, 1854. — The following 

 is all the mention made by these authors of the researches of Llhuyd. " A la fin du X\'II""" siucle parut 

 I'ouvrage dc Lwyd, qui, par les nombreuscs figures qu'il conticnt et les changcments que son autcur fit subir a 

 la nomenclature de son cpoqiic, semble avoir prodiiit unc assez vive impression dans Ic monde savant au mo- 

 ment de sa publication. L' autcur y a employe divers noms pour designer les differcns fragmcns de Crinoides 

 qu'il a figures, on (jui ont fait partic dc sa collection. C'est ainsi qu'il donne les noms gcneriques de Porpites, 

 (V EntrocJius, de Vohmlu, ct ii'Asteria a, dcs fragmens de tiges de divers especes dc Crinoides ; qu'il designo 

 sous cclui do Stellaria, do Volvola, de Modiolus, ct d'Astropoditun un certain nombre do soramets et de frag- 

 ments de sommcts de ces animaux. Co dernier iiom suffit pour faire comprendre que Lwvn, a re.xcmple d& 

 LiSTEs et de Bbauhoxt, a confondu ecs sommets avco Icurs racincs" (p. 30). 



