266 
without any recent animal with which they could be considered as 
analogous. 
In the year 1753, Mn Mylius, in a letter to Haller, described a new 
kind of zoophyte caught in the North Sea, which somewhat resem- 
bled the encrinusi Mr. Ellis, also, about the same time, obtained 
another of these animals caught in the same sea.* Some slight agree- 
ment having been observed between the general form of this animal 
and that of the lily encrinite, several naturalists were inclined to suppose 
that the real analogue of the fossil animal was discovered. A 
very slight degree of attention, however, was necessary to discover 
that no real similitude existed between the two animals. It will 
be sufficient to observe here that neither the column nor the rays of 
the recent animal are, like those of the encrinus, articulated ; nor do its 
rays proceed from a regularly formed base, as do those of the fossil 
animal. Indeed, to the present day, no animal has been discovered 
which can be said to bear the least analogy with any of the different 
species of encrinites. 
Various conjectures were also formed, and numerous researches were 
made, with the hope of discovering the recent analogue of the penta- 
crinite, but without any success, until Madame de Boisjourdaine, 
of Paris, was presented, by a friend from Martinique, with a fragment 
of a new and curious zoophyte, which he had received from a captain 
of a ship, who was unable to say in what sea it had been found. 
At the death of Mad. Boisjourdaine, this curious specimen camC 
into the possession of Mons. Davila. But it is to Mons. Guettard that 
we are indebted for having first manifested the relationship between 
it and the pentacrinites. 
This zoophyte appears to be undoubtedly a species of pentacrinus, 
in its recent state. Like the fossil animal, it is described as possessing 
an articulated vertebral column, on which is supported a cluster of 
* The Natural History of Coralline, Plate XXXVII. 
