7 8 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



When found in the softer clays of Lincoln and 

 Whitby the joints are separate from each other, 

 and have for a long time been picked up and valued 

 as ornaments. In more ignorant and superstitious 

 days they were even supposed to have been the 

 relics of ancient personal decoration and the em- 

 blems of devotion. In Scott's Marmion we find 

 this myth referred to in the following lines : 



"On a rock by Lindisfarne 

 St. Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame 

 The sea-born beads which bear his name." 



Apiocrinits is a common Oolitic genus. The 

 crinoids of this group had a long column, which 

 was rounded and expanded at the uppermost joints, 

 forming with the summit a pear-shaped mass, and 

 hence obtaining the name of the Pear encrinite. 

 The organism was generally fixed to some hard 

 body, such as a shell, the base of the column being 

 spread out on the surface of such object just as the 

 common sea- weed (Corallina officinalis) arranges 

 itself on the sea-bed. 



In the Jurassic rocks we meet with the more 

 highly developed crinoids, such as Saccosoma. This 

 greatly resembled the modern Comatula, or feather 

 star. When young it was attached, but like 

 Comatula it became free after having passed through 

 the larval stages. When the living larva of Coma- 

 tula was first dredged up it was supposed to be 

 one of the fixed or pedunculated crinoids, and was 

 named Pentacrinus Europaus, but its true nature 

 is now well understood. It is generally held that 



