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Look at the Crinoids, or stalked star-fishes, the "Lilies of living stone," which swarmed in the ancient seas, in vast variety, and in such numbers that whole beds of limestone are composed of their disjointed fragments; but which have vanished out of our modern seas, we know not why, till, a few years since, almost the only known living species was the exquisite and rare Pentacrinus asteria, from deep water off the Windward Isles of the West Indies.
Of this you will see a specimen or two both at Liverpool and in the British Museum; and near them, probably, specimens of the new-old Crinoids, discovered of late years by Professor Sars, Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, Dr. Carpenter, Dr.
The embryology of the modern types confirms this idea, for here we find an epitome of their geological history. The embryo of the present Star-Fishes recalls the Crinoids; the embryo of the Crab recalls the Trilobites; the embryo of the Vertebrates, including even that of the higher Mammalia, recalls the ancient Fishes.
One of these sketches shows us such a creature hungrily inspecting a pool where Crinoids, with their long stems, large, closely-coiled Chambered Shells, and Brachiopods, the Oysters and Clams of those days, offer him a tempting repast.
It is the age of the Crinoids or sea-lilies. The starfish, which has abandoned the stalk, does not seem to prosper as yet, and the brittle-star appears. Their age will come later. It is precisely the order of appearance which our theory of their evolution demands.
An imperfect intelligence, imperfectly taught, and this is the condition of our finite humanity, will certainly fail to keep all these laws perfectly. Disease is one of the penalties of one of the forms of such failure. Malformed specimens of Crinoids are known from the Triassic and Jurassic deposits.
Protozoans and sponges are exceedingly abundant, and all contribute to the making of Mesozoic strata. Corals have assumed a more modern type. Sea urchins have become plentiful; crinoids abound until the Cretaceous, where they begin their decline to their present humble station. Trilobites and eurypterids are gone. The latter type is higher in organization and now far more common.
The prevailing fossils, besides corals and trilobites, and some crinoids, are several small species of Orthis, Cardiola, and numerous thin-shelled species of Orthoceratites. About six species of Graptolite, a peculiar group of sertularian fossils before alluded to as being confined to Silurian rocks, occur in this shale.
I wrote Professor Fales of Danville about this time, sending him a small box of crinoids, and casually mentioned the boy and his strange habit, writing out the above list of words, with others, that he habitually repeated. He wrote back that the words were Egyptian or a kindred Hamite tongue. Consulting the college library, he had discovered that the ancient Egyptian name for Atlantis was Kami.
Crests, of birds, difference of, in the sexes; dorsal hairy, of mammals. Cricket, field-, stridulation of the; pugnacity of male. Cricket, house-, stridulation of the. Crickets, sexual differences in. Crinoids, complexity of. Crioceridae, stridulation of the. Croaking of frogs. Crocodiles, musky odour of, during the breeding season. Crocodilia. Crossbills, characters of young. Crosses in man.
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