NO. 7 SEA-LILIES AND FEATHER-STARS — CLARK 27, 



considerable abundance and variety. Foraminifera also form a staple 

 article of food for these deep-sea species, for he frequently found 

 Glohigerina, BilocuUna and other types beneath the covering plates of 

 the food grooves on the arms and pinnules, while the remains of their 

 soft parts occur in the intestines of decalcified specimens. 



Seeliger believes that he recognized in the earliest food of the larvse 

 of Antedon adriatica half-digested infusorians and different pelagic 

 larvae. Bury found the stomach of the very young pentacrinoids of 

 Antedon mediterranea so filled with diatoms that the cutting of sec- 

 tions was rendered very difficult. 



Dr. Edwin Kirk states that in the case of a number of specimens of 

 Comanthus japonica which he examined the contents of the intestine 

 were almost wholly comminuted animal matter. 



At Maer Island, Torres Strait, Dr. H. L. Clark examined the 

 stomach contents of four comatulids (species undetermined). He 

 found that in each case the greater part of the food material was 

 green algas, chiefly unicellular though some linear forms (thread 

 algse) were also noted ; a few diatoms were detected, and some 

 foraminifera. In one of the stomachs several radiolarians were seen, 

 in another a piece of a red alga, and in a third some fragments of 

 minute crustaceans. Dr. Clark also examined the stomach contents 

 of Tropiometra picta at Tobago which he found to consist of a 

 mixture of vegetable and animal food, the former predominating. 

 The plants were diatoms and unicellular green algse, with occasional 

 fragments of seaweeds ; of animals, crustaceans were most frequently 

 noted, but a few foraminifera were also seen; the crustaceans were 

 minute amphipods, copepods and crab zoseas. 



Dr. Th. Mortensen found that a relatively large percentage of the 

 pentacrinoids of Isometra vivipara have in their stomachs the half- 

 digested, but still perfectly recognizable, remnants of the larvae of 

 the same species ; he even found very young pentacrinoids with the 

 vestibule recently ruptured and the arms not yet developed with 

 embryos almost as large as themselves in their mouths. He remarks 

 that on account of the large number of pentacrinoids found attached 

 in clusters to the tips of the upturned cirri — as many as 99 in one 

 specimen — this danger to the embryos is very real, and probably quite 

 a large number of them perish in that way. 



LOCOMOTION 

 Excepting for the pentacrinites all of the stalked crinoids are 

 firmly attached to foreign objects or rooted in the mud and therefore 

 incapable of locomotion. The pentacrinites have such long and heavy 



