434 THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. [CHAP. IX. 
derfully numerous; and we frequently dredge sponges 
and ecrals actually covered with them in the atti- 
tudes in which they lived, nestling among their fibres 
and in the angles of their branches. I have counted 
seventy-three examples of Amphiura abyssicola, small 
and large, sticking to one [Toléenia. 
Both on account of their beauty and extreme 
rarity, and of the important part they have borne 
in the fauna of some of the past periods of the 
earth’s history, the first order of the Echinoderms, 
the Crinoidea, has always had a special interest to 
naturalists; and, on the watch as we were for miss- 
ing links which might connect the present with the 
past, we eagerly welcomed any indication of their 
presence. Crinoids were very abundant in the seas 
of the Silurian period; deep beds of carboniferous 
limestone are often formed by the accumulation of 
little else than their skeletons, the stem joints and 
cups cemented together by limy sediment; and 
dozens of the perfect crowns of the elegant lily- 
encrinite are often scattered over the surface of 
slabs of the muschelkalk. But during the lapse of 
ages the whole order seems to have been worsted 
in the ‘struggle for life.’ They become scarce in the 
newer mezozoic beds, still scarcer in the tertiaries, 
and up to within the last few years only two 
living stalked crinoids were known in the seas 
of the present period, and these appeared to be 
confined to deep water in the seas of the Antilles, 
whence fishermen from time to time bring up muti- 
lated specimens on their lines. Their existence has 
been known for more than a century; but although 
many eyes have been watching for them, until very 
