CHAPTER X. 



X 



Echinodeiimata {Star -fishes). 



On many a shingly beach where the limestone formation 

 occurs there may be found small perforated pebbles, 

 which, rounded and polished by the action of the waves, 

 resemble beads of stone. In the days of Popish superstition, 

 these were supposed to be fashioned by an imaginary 

 "Saint Cuthbert" for the rosaries with which prayers 

 and invocations were meted out by tale. One of the 

 rocky islets that speckle the tempestuous sea of Northum- 

 berland, was assigned to the special manufacture of these 

 useful articles : — 



" On a rock by Lindisfarn 



Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame 



The sea-bom beads that bear his name." — Marmion, 



In the same districts where these occur, the wondering 

 peasantry have often admired what they call Lily-stones, a 

 class of fossils to which modern geologists apply the 

 equivalent term Encrinites ; the stony stem, and a crown 

 of rays bending in sigmoid curves, resembling the stalk 

 and elegant bell-shaped blossom of a liliaceous flower. 



