ON THE ECHINODERMATA. 
271 
In reviewing what I have said in this meagre outline of a large 
subject I desire to impress on your minds the fact that the study of 
the Echinoderms enables us to illustrate some of the great natural 
laws which the study of Palaeontology has unfolded to us. First, then, 
we see that the species of animals of one geological epoch neither lived 
before nor after that epoch, and that no species of Echinoderm is 
common to two epochs of a different age. This great fundamental 
truth is abundantly verified in the study of this class. Second, we 
have seen that between fossil and recent Echinoderms the difference 
is greatest in proportion to the length of time which separates living 
from fossil forms. Third, a comparison of the species of different 
epochs with each other shows us that the temperature of the sea in 
given localities has varied much from time to time, and dredging 
operations have taught us that species have lived at much greater 
depths than was formerly considered possible. Fourth, that the 
species which lived in the ancient seas had a much wider geographical 
distribution than those which now live, as shown by the species of 
carboniferous times. Fifth, another important lesson—the permanence 
of generic types—is derived from the study of this class: that generic 
forms have only very slightly varied through long periods of time, and, 
in fact, that many of the Brittle Stars and Sea Stars that lived 
thousands, or it may be millions, of years ago, are anatomically the 
same as the Brittle Stars and Starfishes of our own coasts. This I 
have shown you to be so in the case of the Ophiura and Uraster from 
the Lias beds, compared with the Ophiura and Uraster of British seas. 
The microscopic demonstration prepared in the next room by our 
worthy Secretary, Colonel Basevi, displays a beautiful series of 
preparations of the Echinodermata. One portion consists of the Sharpus 
collection, prepared and presented to the Birmingham Natural History 
and Microscopical Society by Mr. Sharpus, for the loan of which I am 
indebted to my friend Mr. W. B. Hughes, F.L.S., and to whom I beg 
to return our very best thanks. The other portion consists of an 
admirable series of slides illustrating the embryology of the Asteriadte 
and Echinidae, prepared in the Zoological Station at Naples, from 
recent specimens obtained in the Mediterranean. In fact, such is the 
beauty and excellence of these preparations, that I have no hesitation 
in stating that no similar exhibition of the microscopic anatomy of 
this class has ever been placed before the members of any society. 
FUNGI OF THE NEIGHBOUEHOOD OF 
BIEMINGHAM. 
SECOND LIST, 1883. 
This list includes no species repeated from the former one, except 
occasionally when the new locality is in a different county from those 
previously given. I have again to acknowledge the constant and 
kindly help of Mr. W. Phillips and Mr. C. B. Plowright in determining 
