434 THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. [CHAP. ix. 



derfully numerous; and we frequently dredge sponges 

 and corals 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 Holtenia. 



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 

 missing 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 



