330 COMPARATIVE ANATOMY CHAP. 



always of unequal size, and it appears not unlikely that the reduction 

 of their number was caused by the fusing of neighbouring plates. 

 These characteristics necessarily destroy the strictty radial symmetry 

 of the dorsal cup. 



Still further fusions may occur (among the Canaliculata). 



The relative sizes of the plates of the infrabasal, basal and radial 

 circles vary greatly, but this is of no great interest to the comparative 

 anatomist. 



Sub-Class 2. Blastoidea. 



The Blastoidea are paleozoic Pelmatozoa, whose stalked armless 

 body very often has the appearance of a bud (Fig. 263, p. 314). 

 Seen from the side, the body is an oval, truncated sometimes at 

 the apical, sometimes at the oral end. Seen from the oral or 

 aboral pole, its outline is in by far the greater number of (regular) 

 forms regularly pentagonal with rounded projecting angles, some- 

 times not unlike a short - 

 armed Star-fish (Figs. 265 

 and 266, p. 314). In the 

 irregular Blastoids, on the 

 contrary (Eleutherocrinus, As- 

 trocrinus, Fig. 267, p. 315), 

 the radiate structure is dis- 

 turbed by the modified form 

 of one of the ambulacra. 

 The outline of the ovoid 

 body of Eleutkerocrinus, seen 

 from the apical or oral pole, 

 is irregularly pentagonal, 

 with three shorter and two 

 longer sides, the latter be- 

 longing to the left posterior 

 and the unpaired posterior 

 interradii. In Astrocrinus, 

 the body is flattened in the 

 direction of its principal axis, 



z, the two larger basals ; ir, interradials ; r, radials. Or aboral pole, almost Sym- 



metrically four-lobed, the 



lobes being of unequal size. The largest of the lobes lies diametrically 



site the abnormally shaped ambulacrum, which is on the smallest 



form C (FiJ o?7 p 315 T ther middle - sized lobes are almost dike in 



The whole' body of the Blastoids is plated. The test consists, 



apart from the ambulacra, of three circles of plates (Fie. 292) two of 



which belong to the typical apical system of the Ech noderma a while 



