STAR-FISHES. 



93 



that it emitted a fluid which imparted to the water a 

 roseate tinge." * 



But the discovery of this little animal, interesting as it 

 was for its own sake, was rendered more interesting by a 

 subsequent discovery. The Encrinite proved to be only 

 the youthful condition of a well-known elegant Star-fish, 

 called from its colour and its plumose crimson rays arrayed 

 in five pairs, the Rosy Feather-star. But this is a free- 

 roving species, swimming at will through the sea, by the 

 periodical contraction and expansion of its incurved rays, 

 in the manner of a Medusa. 



The metamorphosis of the little Encrinite to the Coma- 

 tula, as the Feather-star is technically named, was at first 

 but a matter of probable conjecture. It has, however, 

 been verified by actual observation. " When dredging," 

 observes Professor Forbes, the learned historian of British 

 Star-fishes, "in Dublin Bay, in August 1840, with my 

 friend Mr R Ball and Mr W. Thomson, we found numbers 

 of the Phytocrinus, or polype state of the Feather-star, 

 more advanced than they had ever been seen before ; so 

 advanced that we saw the creature drop from its stem and 

 swim about, a true Comatula ; nor could we find any differ- 

 ence between it and the perfect animal, when examining it 

 under the microscope." t 



And thus was completed what the same zoologist desig- 

 nates as " one of the little romances in which natural 

 history abounds ; one of those narrations which, while 

 believing, we almost doubt, and yet while doubting, must 

 believe." 



» "Zoology for Schools," i 47. 

 f "Hist, of Brit. Star-fishes," xii 



