128 OUR COMMON BRITISH FOSSILS. 



The Secondary Encrinites are mainly distinguished 

 from those of the Primary rocks by the fact that the 

 grooves in the arms are not arched over, but are con- 

 tinued over the central or upper surfaces. In England, 

 the only member of the New Red Sandstone which 

 yields fossil Encrinites the Muschelkalk is absent. 

 In Germany, especially in the hilly country about 

 Jena, where the Muschelkalk limestone crops out, the 

 well-known " Lily Encrinite " (Encrinus moniliformis), 

 (Fig. 79), abounds. In our Liassic and Oolitic rocks, 

 Crinoids are sometimes very common. This is notably 

 the case in the shales of the Lias about Whitby and 

 at Lyme Regis, where several species of the beautiful 

 Pentacrinus occur profusely. The heads and the 

 wonderfully complex arms, which must have ex- 

 panded like a living net when the animals were alive, 

 are preserved in the greatest perfection, and are 

 frequently converted into iron pyrites. The joints of 

 the stems have long been known under the name 

 of " St. Cuthbert's Beads," and, as such, Sir Walter 

 Scott alludes to them in his " Marmion." In the 

 Oolite we have such genera as Miller ocrinus and 

 Apiocrinus, the latter perhaps better known as the 

 " Pear Encrinite." In the Bradford Clay, near Bath, 

 the thick seam often swarms with joints and detached 

 plates of the body, so that the student may here 

 obtain material enough to exercise his ingenuity in 

 reconstructing afresh the entire organism. The Apio- 

 crinites were usually fixed to some hard body by 



