250 



NA TV RE 



\7idy 26, 18: 



Only an instant's glance at this brilliant novelty was 

 vouchsafed to the poet-naturalist ; for beneath his glance 

 the star-fish, thus brought up to quarters new to it, threw 

 off all its arms, and what was once a thing of beauty be- 

 came now a tangled mass of writhing arms moving away 

 from the disc that had so long borne them company. 



From living in great darkness and in the tranquil 

 depths of the ocean's bosom, the being brought so sud- 

 denly up into the bright sunlight and to the agitated 

 movements of that ocean's surface was too great a change 



and too severe a shock, and the catastrophe just men- 

 tioned was the consequence. To Asbjornsen, however, this 

 thing of beauty seemed like a link in the chain of the past. 

 In its unlikeness to most recent forms of star-fishes he 

 saw its connection with certain fossil forms, and in its 

 brilliant sun-like form he was reminded of the '' Brising" 

 which, according to ancient Norwegian tradition, was 

 concealed by Loke in the abyss of the primeval ocean, 

 but which had so long served as the ornament to cover 



the breast of the god Freya, and he gave the name of. 

 Brisinga to the new genus. 



From the number of its arms Asbjornsen called this 

 new species 7>. endecnciifmos, and until quite recently if 

 was the only species known. In one locality of the fjord — 

 Hesthammer — its occurrence cannot be considered as 

 very rare, it has only been met with on rocky bottoms 

 and at depths of from 200 to 400 fathoms. It has also 

 been dredged by Prof. G. O. .Sars some miles north of 

 Bergen ; by Sir Charles Wyville Thomson in the North 

 Atlantic, and off the west coast of 

 Portugal by Mr. Gywn Jeffreys, an 

 account of the finding of these 

 latter specimens will be found in 

 Prof. Sir C. W. Thomson's most 

 interesting work on the " Depths 

 of the Sea." 



A second species of this genus 

 was in 1869 and 1870 brought up 

 by Prof. G. O. Sars at the fishing- 

 place Skraaven, in Lofoten, from a 

 depth of 300 fathoms, and this 

 species has also since been found 

 in the great depths of the Atlantic 

 '~'cean ; for this species the name 

 I>. corotiala has been selected by 

 Sars, and this name has been 

 adopted by Thomson, from whose 

 work the accompanying beautiful 

 woodcut of this species has been 

 borrowed. It represents the ani- 

 mal as seen from above ; five rudi- 

 mentary arms in one series take' 

 the place of those that have been 

 lost, for in this species the num- 

 ber of arms varies from nine to 

 twelve. 



This new species has been made 

 the subject of an elaborate memoir 

 by Prof. G. O. Sars, in which 

 memoir the structure and affinity 

 of the genus is also fully discussed. 

 It has been published as the Uni- 

 versity of Christiania's programme 

 for the latter half of 1875. With 

 the aid of a tolerably large number 

 of fresh specimens and by repeated 

 careful dissections, Sars has been 

 enabled to ascertain most of the 

 points in connection with its his- 

 tology, and seven plates assist in 

 illustrating the structures described. 

 He considers the functions of the 

 remarkable little organs called Pedi- 

 cellaria;, which occur in most sur- 

 prising number in both species of 

 Brisinga, as that of seizing and 

 holding fast the objects which come 

 in contact with them, those that 

 are found on the dorsal surface, 

 thus acting as protectors to the 

 thin skin ; and those on the lower 

 suilace acting in the service of 

 alimentation. 

 Among living star-fishes Brisinga seems to stand iso- 

 lated, coming perhaps nearer to Pedicellaster ; with the 

 oldest known fossil star-fish Prolaster, it shows close 

 affinities, but would seem to be older and less specialised, 

 and if so it would then be the most primitive as well as 

 oldest fqrm known of Star-fishes. It must therefore be 

 kept in a family of Echinoderms by itself which may be 

 called B>-''int^idce. 



E. P. W. 



