CRINOIDEA. 26 3 
collections, but in their dried state they represent very imperfectly 
the elegance and particular grace of this curious type of beings. To 
understand the star-fishes, they must be seen in an aquarium, where 
we can admire the form, figure, movements, and manners of*these 
marvellous beings. 
The Asterias are the planets of the sea. It may be said that 
heaven, reflected during the night on the silvery surface of the ocean, 
let fall some of those stars into its depths which decorate the re- 
splendent vault. 
CRINOIDE#. 
We quoted the maxim of Linnzus in the earlier pages of this 
volume, that Nature makes no leaps. Nature proceeds by means of 
insensible transitions, rising by degrees from one organic form to 
another. Most of the animals hitherto described are immovably fixed 
to some solid object ; at least, such is their condition in the adult 
state. We are about to describe Echinoderms free of all fetters ; 
animals “ which walk in their strength and liberty” at one time of 
their existence, while at others they are fixed and stationary. 
The Crinoides, the first family of Echinoderms, are mostly 
attached to marine rocks by a sort of root, having a long flexible 
stem, which enables them to execute movements in the circle 
limited only by the length of this stem, just as the ox or goat in our 
paddocks is confined by its tether to the space circumscribed by the 
length of its rope. 
Let the reader picture to himself a star-fish borne upon the 
summit of a flexible stem firmly rooted in the soil, and he has a 
general idea of the form of some of the Echinoderms which compose 
the family of the Crinoidez. Naturalists of the seventeenth century 
bestowed the name of stone Zlies on these curious products. This 
rather poetical name proves that the conformation of these creatures 
had at an early period attracted observation, presenting the naturalist 
with the most curious of his lessons. The encrinites raise up, as from 
the dead, a whole world buried in the abyss of the past. At the 
present time only a few genera of these Echinoderms exist, whilst in 
the early ages of the world the ocean must have swarmed with them. 
Crinoids abounded in the seas during the transition and secondary 
epoch. It was one of the most numerous of the families which 
inhabited the salt waters of the ancient world. In traversing some 
parts of France, we tread under our feet myriads of these beings, 
whose calcareous remains form vast beds of rock. The Encrinites 
gradually disappeared from the ancient seas; their species were 
