THE LILY-STARS. 205 



and recent, and in learning that the Comatula is one of 

 these, having kindred with star-fishes ; but how that interest 

 is intensified by direct inspection of the living animal ! I 

 could not satiate myself with looking at my prize.* All 

 the way home the bottle was constantly being raised to 

 my loving regard, that I might feast myself upon the wav- 

 ing grace of those pink and white feathers ; and I thought 

 of the poetical passage in which Edward Forbes expresses his 

 emotions about these Crinoidea which " raise up a vision 

 of an early world, a world the potentates of which were not 

 men, but animals — of seas on whose tranquil surfaces myriads 

 of convoluted Nautili sported, and in whose depths millions of 

 Lily-stars waved wilfully on their slender stems. Now, the 

 Lily-stars and Nautili are almost gone ; a few lovely strag- 

 glers of those once aboundino- tribes remain to evidence the 

 wondrous forms and structures of their comrades. Other 

 beings, not less wonderful, and scarcely less graceful, have 

 replaced them ; while the seas in which they flourished have 

 become lands whereon man in his columned cathedrals and 

 mazy palaces emulates the beauty and symmetry of their 

 fluted stems and chambered cells," -f* 



The delight of getting new animals is like the delight of 

 childhood in any novelty, an impulse that moves the soul 

 through the intricate ]3aths of knowledge — knowledge which 

 is but broken wonder ; and this delight the naturalist has 

 constantly awaiting him. Satiety is not possible, for Nature 



* I have since had several, but utterly inferior in colour and gitice to this 

 the first I ever saw. 

 + History of British Star-Jiskes, p. ?. 



