STAF.-FISHES. 
91 
CHAPTER X. 
Echinodekmata ( Star-fishes ). 
Ox 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 bo 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 liis name.” — M amnion. 
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. 
