40 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



as stone lilies or encrinites. It is the joints of their 

 fossilised stalks, found by the thousand in some lime- 

 stones, that Sir Walter Scott speaks of in " Marmion " 

 as " Saint Cuthbert's beads." The crinoids are re- 

 presented to-day by only a few living forms. Deep- 

 sea exploration added to their number, certainly, and 

 dragged from the abysses several stalked starfishes 

 which had been regarded as being wholly extinct. 

 These typical crinoids (fig. 10), whether alive in the 

 deep ocean to-day, or fossilised as remnants of far- 

 back populations of forgotten seas, spent the whole 

 of their existence on stalks. 



Yet, somewhere about 1840 or so I am not sure 

 of the exact date Mr. J. V. Thompson found in 

 the Cove of Cork a curious starfish set on a stalk, 

 and which was duly named the Pentacrinus Europceus. 

 This was a veritable treasure-find in a zoological 

 sense. If I mistake not, no living crinoid had then 

 been found in European seas, although, afterwards, Sars 

 brought to light another form dredged off the Lofoden 

 Isles. Next in order came the curious fact that Mr. 

 Thompson's stalked starfish left its stalk at a given 

 period in its life-history, and, lo and behold ! appeared 

 before the eyes of naturalists as our old friend the 

 rosy feather star, of Lamlash, and elsewhere. 



So that the famous star of Lamlash is not an 

 ordinary starfish at all. It is a crinoid, in fact a 

 member of the stalked starfish race, and a creature of 

 aristocratic lineage, if we are to judge high life by 

 " a lang pedigree." Compared with our rosy feather 

 star, the starfishes of the beach are probably very 

 modern beings, relatively speaking, although they too 

 go far enough back in the geological record as fossils. 

 The star of Lamlash differs from the deep-sea crinoids 



