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 Eosy Foathor-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 Pliyiocrirms , 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.” + 
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. 
t “Hist, of Brit. Star- fishes,” xii. 
