7* 
LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
Fig. 31. 
began to put on each their own peculiar shape, 
No. I had not swum about for many hours before 
some lime-plates began to form in his body, arrang- 
ing themselves in the shape of a cup (a, A, Fig 31), 
and below these other and smaller plates took up 
the form of a stalk (b). 
This went on for several 
days, while the jelly-body 
fed and swam about like 
any other living animal ; 
but it proved after all to 
be only the cradle of the 
real creature, for after a 
^ time the jelly-body began 
to shrink up, and the 
whole sank to the bottom 
of the sea, and a strong 
lime-plate (c) was formed 
The infancy of a Feather- Star.* r w 
Williamson. which fastened the lime- 
A, The jelly -animal swimming Stalk to the rock, where 
by its lashes a , The cup. b The the an i ma l remained 
stem, f, The fixing plate of the . 
young animal forming within. tixea, looking like 3. 
B, The fixed animal from which stony plant, and all that 
the Feather -Star (Fig. 38) after- - j r ^ • 11 
wards breaks off. remained of the jelly 
was a thin film spread 
over the stem and cup. The jelly- animal had in 
fact become transformed into a Crinoid or Stone- 
Lily, about half-an-inch high, which soon put out 
jointed arms from its cup and fed in the water, and 
at this stage was a miniature copy of the well-known 
Medusa's Head,f which grows in the deep seas, and 
* These five figures, 31 to 35, are all much magnified. 
+ Pentacrinus caput-medusce. 
