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numerous spines and retractile muscular feelers, indicate a different mode of 
detaining food and bringing it to the mouth, which is confirmed by the Ophiure 
and Asterix crawling along with the mouth downwards, catching their prey, 
and pushing it on along the space or groove between the inner lateral angles 
of the arms to the mouth. 
Although the numerous fingers of the Euryale, resulting from the repeated 
bifurcation of the five arms, are well calculated to detain prey caught in a 
floating attitude, yet the want of tentacula, still removes them from the Cri- 
noidea in organization. 
These and other facts (too numerous to be incorporated in the present 
monograph, but which, should circumstances favour my researches and give 
them a degree of maturity, I intend at a future time to lay before the public) 
resulted from my enquiries. 
The comparison of these results with those obtained from the Crinoidea 
made me anxious to examine the Comatule, the only remaining genus of 
the Stelleridz, which from its general aspect seemed to promise a nearer 
approach than any of the preceding to the family of Crinoidea, and in which 
I therefore still hoped to find this connecting link of which I was in search. 
The results were even more favourable than the first appearances had given 
me reason to hope, presenting, indeed, a conformity of structure almost per- 
fect in every essential part, (excepting the column which is wanting, or at least 
reduced to a single plate) and exhibiting an animal which would be defined 
with sufficient precision as a Pentacrinus destitute of the column. The details 
of this genus follow. | 
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