CHAP. 1x.] THE DEEP-SEA FAUNA. 435 
lately not more than twenty specimens had reached 
Europe, and of these only two showed all the joints 
and plates of the skeleton, and the soft parts were 
lost in all. 
These two species belong to the genus Pentucrinus, 
which is well represented in the beds of the lias and 
oolite, and sparingly in the white chalk; and are 
named respectively Pentacrinus asteria, L., and P. 
mullert, OERSTED. Fig. 70 represents the first of these. 
This species has been known in Europe since the year 
1755, when a specimen was brought to Paris from 
the island of Martinique, and described by Guettard 
in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences. 
For the next hundred years an example turned up 
now and then from the Antilles. Ellis described 
one, now in the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow 
University, in the Philosophical Transactions for 
1761. One or two found their way into the museums 
of Copenhagen, Bristol, and Paris; two into the 
British Museum; and one fortunately fell into the 
hands of the late Professor Johannes Miiller of 
Berlin, who published an elaborate account of it in 
the Transactions of the Royal Berlin Academy for 
1843. Within the last few years, Mr. Damon of 
Weymouth, a well-known collector of natural history 
objects, has procured several very good specimens, 
which are now lodged in the museums of Moscow, 
Melbourne, Liverpool, and London. 
Pentacrinus asteria may be taken as a type of 
its order; I will therefore describe it briefly. The 
animal consists of two well-marked portions, a stem 
and a head. The stem, which is often from 40 to 
60 centimetres in length, consists of a series of 
FF 2 
