Echinoderms 65 



on a stalk, the mouth pointing for ever 

 upwards, and the arms branched. 



The beautiful pink Rosy Feather 

 Star, the only British Crinoid is, in its 

 early stages, planted on a calcareous 

 stalk, anchored to weeds, corallines, 

 etc., but late in life the feather star 

 breaks away from the stalk and lives 

 on the sea floor amongst dense vegeta- 

 tion. 



The Holothuria or Sea Cucumbers, so 

 called from their superficial resemblance 

 to that vegetable, are more uniform in 

 shape than the urchins and sea stars. 

 The body is always elongate and is 

 sparsely armoured, the tough skin carry- 

 ing a number of scattered spines instead 

 of plates. A number of branched ten- 

 tacles surround the mouth. Some sea 

 cucumbers attain a very large size, a 

 North Atlantic species exceeding a length 

 of two feet and a diameter of a foot. A 

 common form just below tide limit on 



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