270 THE OCEAN WOELD. 



liquid is instant death to these creatures, which in this condition perish 

 suddenly before they have time to mutilate themselves. The star-fish 

 is a curious ornament in our natural history collections, hut in this 

 state they represent very imperfectly the elegance and particular 

 grace of this curious type. To understand the star-fishes, they must 

 be seen in an aquarium, where we can admire the form, figure, move- 

 ments, and manners of these marvellous beings. 



The Asterias are the planets of the sea. It may be said that heaven, 

 reflected during the night on the silvery surface of the ocean, let 

 fall some of those stars into its depths which decorate the resplendent 

 vault. 



CRINOIDEA. 



We quoted the maxim of Linnaeus in the earlier pages of this volume, 

 that Nature makes no leaps. Nature proceeds by means of insensible 

 transitions, rising by degrees from one organic form to another. Most 

 of the animals hitherto described are immovably fixed to some solid 

 object ; at least, such is their condition in the adult state. We are 

 about to describe zoophytes free of all fetters ; animals " which walk in 

 their strength and liberty." 



Between zoophytes fixed to the soil, like the corals, gorgons, and 

 aggregate zoophytes, such as sea-urchins and holothurias, Nature has 

 placed an intermediate race, namely, the Crino'idea, a class of zoophytes 

 which are attached to a rock by a sort of root armed with claws, 

 having a long flexible stem, which enables them to execute movements 

 in the circle limited only by the length of this stem, just as the ox or 

 goat in our paddocks is confined by its tether to the space circum- 

 scribed by the length of its rope. 



Let the reader picture to himself a star-fish borne upon the summit 

 of a flexible stem firmly rooted in the soil, and he has a general 

 idea of the zoophytes which compose the order of the Crinoidea. 

 Naturalists of the seventeenth century bestowed the name of stone 

 lilies on these curious products. This rather poetical name proves 

 that the conformation of these creatures had at an early period 

 attracted observation, presenting the naturalist with the most curious 

 of his lessons. The encrinites raise, as from the dead, a whole world 

 buried in the abyss of the past. At the present time only two genera 



