LILY ENCRINITE. 317 



in cases of accident, to which bodies so delicately con- 

 structed must have been much exposed in an element so 

 stormy as the sea, seems to have had the power of deposit- 

 ing fresh matter to repair casual injuries. Mr. Miller's 

 work abounds with examples of reparations of this kind in 

 various fossil species of CrinoVdeans. Our PL 47, Fig. 2, a. 

 represents a reparation near the upper portion of the stem 

 of Apiocrinites Rotundus. 



In the recent Pentacrinus (PI. 52, Fig. 1,) one of the 

 arms is under the process of being reproduced, as Crabs 

 and Lobsters reproduce their lost claws and legs, and many 

 lizards their tails and feet. The arms of star-fishes also, 

 when broken off, are in the same manner reproduced. 



From these examples we see that the power of repro- 

 duction has been always strongest in the lowest orders of 

 animals, and that the application of remedial forces has 

 ever been duly proportioned to the liability to injury, resulting 

 from the habits and condition of the creatures in which 

 these forces are most powerfully developed. 



Encrinites Moniliformis, 



As the best mode of explaining the general economy of 

 the Crinoi'dea, will be to examine in some detail the anatomy 

 of a single species, I shall select, for this purpose, that 

 which has formed the type of the order, viz. the Encrinites 

 moniliformis (see PI. 48, 49, 50.) Minute and full descrip- 

 tions are given by Parkinson and Miller of this fossil, show- 

 ing it to combine in its various organs a union of mechanical 

 contrivances, which adapt each part to its peculiar functions 

 in a manner infinitely surpassing the most perfect con- 

 trivances of human mechanism. 



Mr. Parkinson* states that after a careful examination he 

 lias ascertained that, independently of the number of pieces 



* Organic Rcrrnins, vol. ii. p. 180. 



27* 



