Chap. X.] 
UPPER SILURIAN STARFISHES. 
225 
cylindrical tubular processes, which attached the Crinoid to Shells and Corals. 
The cabinets of my friends Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Gray furnished the materials 
to Mr. Salter for the illustration and description of this remarkable fossil. 
Asteriadse, or Starfishes, are by no means rare in the Upper Silurian, four 
species, which are here figured, having been long ago found in the Ludlow rocks 
of Kendal. The most common is Palasterina primseva, Foss. 57. f. 1. Palseaster 
Ruthveni, f. 3, and Palseaster hirudo, f. 2, are less abundant. The rare fossil 
Protaster Sedgwicki, f. 4, was thought by Professor E. Forbes to be closely re- 
lated to certain species of the group of Euryales, now inhabiting the northern 
seas ; but better specimens of the genus, since obtained (p. 127), show it to have 
been an abnormal form of the Ophiuridse, from which it differs in having a 
double instead of only a single row of plates above and below. This genus 
Protaster, which first appears in the Lower Silurian strata, has been found 
abundantly in the grey, fine-grained flagstone of the Lower Ludlow rock. In 
Shropshire, P. Miltoni, Salter, nearly a foot wide from tip to tip of the rays, and 
a small, graceful species, P. leptosoma, Salt., have been discovered*, together 
with four or five species of Palseocoma, a Starfish which greatly resembles the 
common red Bird's-foot Sea-star (Palmipes roseus) of our coasts. One species, 
Palseocoma pyrotechnica, Salt., has stiff club-shaped spines like those of the 
living Cushion-stars. Lastly, there is a Starfish in the Dudley limestone, named 
Lepidaster Grayiif by Professor Forbes, more crinoidal in its aspect than any 
existing species. 
Fossils (57). Upper Silurian Starfishes. 
1. Palasterina primseva, Forbes. 
2. Palseaster hirudo, Forbes. 3. P. 
Ruthveni, Forbes. 4. Protaster 
Sedgwicki, Forbes. (All from the 
Upper Ludlow rocks in the neigh- 
bourhood of Kendal, and first found 
by Professor Sedgwick.) 
I have thus dwelt particularly on a few of the radiate animals, because they 
present us with some new or little-known characteristics of the Silurian rocks. 
The remaining groups, Mollusca, Annelida, and Crustacea, do not call for quite 
so much detail. 
The nomenclature of one group of the Mollusca is being thoroughly revised by 
Mr. T.Davidson, in his important Monograph on the British Silurian BrachiopodaJ. 
Brachiopod Shells, though not in such great preponderance, nor so numerous 
in species, as in the Lower Silurian rocks, are yet very abundant. Pentameri 
are still present; but they are mostly distinct from the Llandovery species. 
"Whilst Orthides are in much less quantity than in the inferior zones, Rhyncho- 
nellse and Spiriferi occur very frequently ; and of Lingulse there are decidedly 
fewer species than in the Lower Silurian. 
Several characteristic Brachiopods have been quoted as ranging from the 
Lower to the Upper Silurian, such as Orthis elegantula, O. biforata, and 0. bi- 
loba, — the first of these being equally abundant in both divisions. Though also 
occurring in both, Strophomena depressa, Dalm., and S. pecten, Linn., Leptaena 
* Salter, in Ann. & Mag. Wat. Hist. 1857, vol. xx. pp. 330, 331. 
t Mem. G-eol. Surv. Decade iii. pi. 1. I Palaeontographical Society's Monographs, 1866. 
Q 
