208 . VII. DELINEATIONS OF 



reliquium belongs After which must be detailed, in 

 distinct clauses, 1. the synonyms or names by which 

 the species has been distinguished bj authors, with 

 references to the figures given of it, &c. 2. the 

 varieties of the species, with their synonyms, &c. 



distinct genus of worms, have of course formed from their fossil 

 remains a distinct family, under HELMINTHOLITHUS. 



Indeed it appears singular, that the excellent Linne should have 

 proposed the animals in question as /sides, after the accurate 

 figure and description of one of them, given by our countryman 

 Ellis (Philos. Trans. Vol. LI I. p. 3.57- " Account of an En- 

 crinus or Starfish with a jointed stem" &c.) ; but, it is still more 

 strange, that Gmelin should retain them in the genus Isis, when 

 he has not hesitated at exchanging its characters, as they stand in 

 tin*. 12. Ed. of the Sy sterna, for those given by Solander and 

 Ellis (Natural History of Zoophytes, p. 104) with which the 

 zoophytes, now under consideration, scarcely agree in any one 

 necessary point of discrimination. The truth of this assertion will 

 be manifest, if we attend to the marked distinctions, which nature 

 has placed between these supposed hides and the real or genuine 

 species In a true Isis, the fyis Hippuris for example, the stem 

 or coral consists of a deposition of stony and cartilaginous matter, 

 secreted by numberless polype-like zoophytes, with which it is 

 wholly surrounded and hence, is really a fabrication like the 

 horny and stony stems in Gorgonia, or the cellular corals in 

 Madrfporoy Tubipora, &c. In the supposed hides (his asteria 

 Isis Entrocha. Linn.) on the contrary, the stem is merely an 

 elongated appendage to a single animal; not clothed, as in Isides 

 properly so called, with a living, fleshy mass, or aggregate of 

 zoophytes, but bare; nor, as in that genus, composed of solid, 

 stony joints, connected by intermediate spongy or horny ones ; 

 but consisting of closely united, uniform; crustaceous articulations 



