98 BY THE DEEP SEA. 



have seen were not more than one-fortieth of an inch in 

 length. 



" From this form the Brittle-star is developed, but in a man- 

 ner unparalleled in any other class of animals. The exterior 

 figure is not gradually changed, but the star is constructed 

 within a particular part of the body of the larva, 'like a 

 picture upon its canvas, or a piece of embroidery in its frame, 

 and then takes up into itself the digestive organs of the larva.' 

 The plane of the future Star-fish is not even the plane of the 

 larva, but one quite independent of, and oblique to it. Strange 

 to tell, the young Star does not absorb into itself the body of 

 the larva, which has acted as a nidus for it, but throws it 

 off as so much useless lumber flesh, rods, and all ! " 



Prof. A. Agassiz, however, would have taken exception to 

 that last sentence, for he declared that " the whole larva and 

 all its appendages are gradually drawn into the body, and 

 appropriated." 



In the plate on page 93 there are two figures besides the 

 Starlet the Feather-star and a Sea-urchin. The Feather-star 

 (Comatula rosaced) is really a deep-water form, but it has been 

 taken occasionally within the littoral zone, and may occur 

 there in the experience of the reader. It is undoubtedly the 

 most beautiful of the entire group, so far as British waters are 

 concerned, and it possesses a special interest for us, as being 

 the only British representative of the Stone-lilies or Encrinites 

 that so abounded in Palaeozoic times that their remains make 

 up whole strata, but of which, until the deep-sea explorations 

 of recent years, no living European species was known. But 

 the Feather-star, as shown in our illustration, had been long 

 known, for in several localities round Britain and Ireland it 

 came up abundantly in the dredge, yet no one suspected it 

 was closely related to the Encrinites. 



In the year 1823 Mr. J. Vaughan Thompson, when dredging in 

 the Cove of Cork, brought up a tiny creature less than an inch 

 in length, but which might have been one of these Encrinites, 



