DEVELOPMENT OF ANTEDON (COMATULA, LAMK.) ROSACEUS. 675 



blance to a Starfish. The descriptions of Agricola were repeated by Conrad Gesner', who 

 gave a figure of a portion of the stem oiPcntacrinus hriareus under the name ofAsteria, 

 and of a portion of the stem of Encrinns Uliifornm under that of Entrochus; like his 

 predecessor, moreover, approximating the Crinoids to the "lapides judiei" (fossil spines 

 of Echini) and to Belemnites. No advance seems to have been made in the knowledge 

 of the CrinoIdea until 16C9, when Lachmund' for the first time figured a complete 

 specimen of Encrinus Ulnformis under the name Pentagonos, and showed that the 

 Entrochi and Trochites were really parts of the same organism. Better figures of the 

 summits of some palaeozoic Crinoidea were soon afterwards given by Martin Lister in 

 his " Description of certain stones figured like plants, and by some observing men 

 esteemed to be plants petrified"': but having unfortunately adopted the erroneous 

 notion that the Crinoids were the fossil remains of Plants which had lived at a great 

 depth in the sea, he was led to regard the body of the Crinoid as the base of the stem, 

 and its arms as ramifications of the roots. Two years afterwards Lister published 

 figures of some stems of Pentacrinus*, which also he regarded as representing marine 

 plants. And not long subsequently he was followed by Beaumont', who described and 

 figured some additional types of palaeozoic Crinoidea under the name of " rock-plants 

 growing in the lead mines of Mendip Hills." 



It was under the influence of such misconceptions on the part of the best-informed 

 Naturalists of the time, — as well as of the doctrine still prevalent among the less instructed, 

 that fossils are nothing else than " curiously figured stones " deriving their peculiar 

 shapes from some " plastic virtue latent in the earth," — that the researches of Llhuyd 

 upon the fossil Crinoidea were commenced ; and it is therefore very much to his credit 

 that he should have made such an important step in advance, as not only to refer these 

 remains to the same group with the Sea-stars, but also to fix upon that particular 

 Sea-star which we now know under the name Antedon, as the type to which they are 

 most nearly allied. As this fact has been entirely ignored by the recent historians of 

 this department of Palaeontology, MM. de Koninck and le Hon^ (to whose labours I 



' De Rorum Fossilium, lapidum ct gommanim maxime, figuris ct similitudinibus libor. Tiyxiri, 1565. 



- Orj'ctographia Hildoshoimensis, pages 58, 59. ' Pliilosophical Transactions, No. 100 (1G73). 



* " A letter containing his obsciTations of the Astroites or Star-Stones," in Philosophical Transactions, 

 No. 112 (1075). 



" Philosophical Transactions, No. 129 (1682), and No. 150 (1683). 



' Eecherches sur les Criuoides du Terrain Carbonifere de la Belgique. Bruxelles, 1854. — The following 

 is all the mention made by these authors of the researches of Ltiiuyn. " A la fin du XVII""' siecle parut 

 I'ouvrage de Lwvd, qui, par Ics nombreuses figures qu'il contient ct Ics changemcnts que son autcur fit subir a 

 la nomenclature de son epoque, scmble avoir produit une asscz vivo impression dans le monde savant an mo- 

 ment de sa publication. L'autcur y a emplo3-d divers noms pour designer les difforens fragmens de Ciinoidcs 

 qu'n a figures, ou qui out fait partie do sa collection. C'cst ainsi qu'il doimo Ics noms gt'ncriqucs de Poi-pites, 

 A' Entrochus, do Volvola, ct d'Asteria b, des fragmens do tiges de divers espoces do Ciinoi'des; qu'il designs 

 sous colui de Slellarici, do Volvola, do Mo'Jiolas, et d'Astrojwdium un certain nombre de sommets ct de frag- 

 ments do sommets de ccs auimaux. Co dernier nom sufflt pour faire compreudre quo Lwyd, a rcxomple de 

 Lister ct de Beausioxt, a confondu ccs sommets avec leiirs racines" (p. 30). 



