DEVELOPMENT OF ANTEDON (COMATULA, LAMK.) EOSACEUS. 677 



his own words. After describing nine specimens of different kinds of recent Starfish, 

 he proceeds (§ xviii.) as follows: — "Inter has decern, turn ob elcgantiam, turn quod 

 maximc rara sit, primas tenet, quae decimo loco exhibetur, decempeda Cornubiensium ; 

 scu Stella rubra loricata, claviculato modiolo ; quinis radiis constans, pennatis ab exortu 

 bifidis. In Comubia juxta Pensans cum antecedente reperimus, sed longinquo maris 

 refluxu. A Stella decern radiorum Columns, si diversa sit, parvitatc pi*8esertim dis- 

 tingucnda est. Columna enim suoe Stelhe pedalem tribuit longitudinem, cum nostra 

 sex aut septem uncias non exsuperet." With this Decempeda Cornubiensium, the Stella 

 AeKuicvrifioc rosacea of Linck, our own Antedon rosaceus, Llhutd afterwards (§ xxx.) 

 compares a fossil " e fodinis Glocestrensibus," and specifies the following as the points 

 of similarity: — "Videmus enini (1), modiolum esse utrique ; (2) modiolo appendentes 

 claviculas aut capreolos ; (3) quinos radios, a primo exortu bifidos ; (4) articulorum 

 cujuslibet radii commissuram loricatam; (5) denique, radiis ab infciiori parte articu- 

 latim adnascentes aristas. Hisce visis, Stellam decempcdam lapideam, cad fossilem, 

 hinic lapidem pronnnciare, nemo, ojn'nor, dnhitahit. (§ xxxi.) Fatemur nihilominus, 

 quoad modiolorum figuram, multum intercsse discriminis, cum lapidea Stella quasi 

 ansellam habeat stellatam, ubi altera scutulum ; et hanc majoris esse molis marina. 

 Verum hi3e notaj aliam tantum speciem inferunt, genus non tollunt. Concesso itaque, 

 hunc lapidem decempedam esse ; comperimus tandem Astcriam nonnullam nihil aliud 

 fore, qviam dccempedte modiolum ; quod ex hoc ipso speclmine manifestum est. Dixi 

 nonnullam, quoniam varia; dantur Astcriae, earumque aliquot Stellarum, quas coriaceas 

 diximus, vertebras exprimere alias docuimus, et ex No. 19, ubi Astoria) paiTaj cum 

 Asterisci ossiculis denudatis conferuntur, propemodum constare arbitror." In the same 

 method of careful and intelligent comparison he proceeds in subsequent sections to show 

 that the Encrinus of Lachmuxdus is similarly related to his Decempeda ; and although 

 he seems to have been far from comprehending the true chai'acter of the stems of the 

 Crinoidea (no recent pedunculate type of the group having been known to him), yet I 

 think that no one who peruses the passages I have quoted can refuse him the credit of 

 having — not as a mere guess, but on the sound basis of anatomical correspondence — 

 distmctly predicated the intimate relationship between our recent Antedon and the fossil 

 Ckinoidea ; a relationship that was subsequently overlooked by Zoologists of the highest 

 eminence, and has only within a comparatively recent period come to be generally 

 admitted. 



The credit of having explicitly pointed out that the Crinoidea, far from belonging to 

 the Vegetable kingdom, are true Animals, closely approximating in structure to the 

 existing types known as " Sea-stars," is assigned by MM. Koninck and Le Hex, as also 

 by MM. Blaixville and Dujardix, to Eosln'Us'. Xot only, however, was his treatise on 

 the sixbject posterior by sixteen years to that of Luiuyd, but his conclusion Avas much 

 less exact; his approximation of the Crinoidea having been not to the genus 



■ 'Tentaminis do litliozois ftc lithophytis oliin marinis, jam vero sulterraneis, prodromus, sive de stcllis 

 jnarinis quondam, nunc fossilibus dbquisitio.' Ilamhiirgh, 1710. 



