CHAP, ix.] THE DEEP-SEA FAUJVA. 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 Pentacrinus, 

 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. 

 mulleri, OERSTED. Eig. 70 represents the first of theee. 

 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. 

 Eor 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 Mliller 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 his- 

 tory objects, has procured several very good speci- 

 mens, which are now lodged in the museums of 

 Moscow, Melbourne, Liverpool, and London. 



Pentacrinus asteria may be taken as the 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 



F F 2 



