Reviews — Wyville Thomson's "Depths of the Sea J' 223 



For the next hundred years an example turned up now and then from 

 the Antilles. Ellis described one now in the Hunterian Museum in 

 Glasgow University, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1761. 

 One or two found their way into the museums of Copenhagen, Bristol, 

 and Paris ; two into the British Museum, and one fortunately fell into 

 the hands of the late Prof. Johannes Miiller, of Berlin, who published 

 an elaborate account of it in the Transactions of the Eoyal Berlin 

 Academy for 1843. Within the last few years Mr. Damon, of Wey- 

 mouth, a well-known collector of natural history objects, has pro- 

 cured several very good specimens, which are now lodged in the 

 museums of Moscow, Melbourne, Liverpool, and London. 



"On the 21st of July, 1870, Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, dredging from 

 the ' Porcupine ' at a depth of 1095 fathoms, lat. 39° 42' N., long. 90° 

 43' W., with a bottom temperature of 4°*3 C, and a bottom of soft 

 mud, took about 20 specimens of a handsome Fentacrinus involved in 

 the ' hempen tangles ' (attached to the lower end of the dredge-bag), 

 and this splendid addition to the fauna of the European seas my 

 friend has done me the honour to associate with my name. Fenta- 

 crinus Wyville-thomsoni, Jeffreys (Fig. 5), is intermediate in some of 

 its characters between P. asteria and F. Mulleri ; it approaches the 

 latter species, however, the more nearly." 



" All the stems of mature examples of this species end uniformly 

 in a nodal joint, surrounded with its whorl of cirri, which curve 

 downwards into a kind of grappling root. The lower surface of the 

 terminal joint is in all smoothed and rounded, evidently by absorp- 

 tion, showing that the animal had for long been free. This character 

 I have remarked as occurring in P. Mulleri. I have no doubt that it 

 is constant in the present species, and that the animal lives loosely 

 rooted in the soft mud, and can change its place at pleasure by 

 swimming with its pennated arms ; that it is in fact intermediate 

 in this respect between the free genus Antedon and the permanently 

 fixed Crinoids." (p. 444.) 



"Two other fixed Crinoids were dredged from the 'Porcupine,' 

 and these must be referred to the Apiocrinidce, which differ from all 

 other sections of the order in the structure of the upper part of the 

 stem." (p. 446.) 



"The Apiocrinidae attained their maximum during the Jurassic 

 period, when they were represented by many fine species of the 

 genera Apiocrinus and Miller icrinus. The Chalk genus Fourgueti- 

 crinus shows many symptoms of degeneracy. The head is small, 

 and the arms are small and short. The arm-joints are so minute 

 that it is scarcely possible to make up a series from the fragments 

 scattered through the Chalk, in the neighbourhood of a cluster of 

 heads. The stem, on the other hand, is disproportionately large and 

 long, and one is led to suspect that the animal was nourished chiefly 

 by the general surface absorption of organic manner, and that the 

 head and special assimilative organs were principally concerned in 

 the function of reproduction. Bhizocrinus loffotensis, M, Sars, was 

 discovered in the year 1864, at a depth of about 300 fathoms, off the 

 Loffoten Islands, by Gr. 0. Sars, a son of the celebrated Professor of 



