384 RADIATA. 



ed on a single specimen, presenting a living net, by 

 the contraction of which any small animal once 

 touched would inevitably be detained. The sucker- 

 feet are no longer found, these animals changing 

 their position by dragging themselves along by 

 their flexible arms. In Comatula,* each ray sepa- 

 rates into three or four very slender ones of equal 

 length, composed of innumerable shelly joints en- 

 veloped in a fleshy covering, and sending out from 

 their sides numberless short and parallel filaments, 

 like the beards of a feather, each having an internal 

 earthy skeleton, and capable of independent motion. 

 They appear to be used as the branched arms of 

 the last genus for the purposes of motion, and of 

 taking prey. The central part, containing the or- 

 gans of the body, is exceedingly small. The Lily- 

 stone, (Pentacrinus^) which so abundantly occurs 

 in a fossil state, and of which one living species 

 is found in our own seas, is an animal formed ex- 

 actly as the last genus, but is placed at the extre- 

 mity of a long jointed stalk of a similar character 

 to the rays, from the sides of which at intervals 

 proceed long jointed filaments. The whole form 

 is that of a lily-like plant; and, to add to the re- 

 semblance, the creature is fixed by its base to the 

 solid rock. Thus we have endeavoured briefly to 

 trace one of the most beautiful and most instructive 

 gradations in the whole chain of Nature, connecting, 

 by insensible steps, forms apparently the most dis- 

 tant and unlike that could be conceived. 



* Comatulus, somewhat hairy, f Tlivrs, pente, five ; x^/vav, krinon, a lily. 



