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Suddenly, down fell the cap and bells, and he saw what had been done; upon which he immediately turned into an enchanter, and commanded the Princess and all her train to fall into a deep sleep, all excepting the knight who had committed the offence, who is for ever riding up and down the castle court, repenting of his discourtesy, with his face towards the tail of a cream-coloured donkey, wearing a cap and bells for a helmet, with a rod for a lance, and a cockle-shell for a shield, and star-fishes for spurs, and the Princess can only be disenchanted by her devoted champion doing battle with him.
The three classes of Radiates, beginning with the lowest, and naming them in their relative order, are Polyps, Acalephs or Jelly-Fishes, and Echinoderms or Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins.
At the periphery is a circular tube connecting them all, and the tentacles, which hang down when the animal is in its natural position, connect at their base with the radiating tubes, while numerous smaller tentacles may form a kind of fringe all round the margin. The third and highest class includes the Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins, and Holothurians or Beches-de-Mer.
We look for Shells, for Mussels and Barnacles, for Crabs, for Shrimps, for Marine Worms, for Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, and we may find here and there a fish stranded on the sand or tangled in the sea-weed.
Such is the difference between the tentacles in a Radiate and the wreath of feelers in a Worm; the external effect may be much the same; but in the former every tentacle opens into one of the chambers as in a Polyp, or connects with one of the radiating tubes as in Acalephs, or with the locomotive suckers as in Star-Fishes, and is therefore closely linked with the whole internal organization; whereas the feelers in the latter are only external appendages, in no way connected with the essential structural elements.
In certain genera of star-fishes, "the very combinations needed to show that the pedicellariae are only modified branching spines" may be found. Thus we have fixed spines, with three equi-distant, serrated, movable branches, articulated to near their bases; and higher up, on the same spine, three other movable branches.
And we are told that in some places the bottom of the sea is strewn with star-fishes and their relations, some of them very beautiful in form and colour, but all formed on the same plan of a central plate, from which five arms or fingers radiate.
A corresponding germinal condition, the two-layered gastrula, occurs transitorily in the embryological history of all the other Metazoa, from the lowest Cnidaria and Vermes up to man. From the common stock of the Helminthes, or simple worms, there develop as independent main branches the four separate stems of the Molluscs, Star-fishes, Arthropods, and Vertebrates.
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.
Paradoxical as this may appear to Mr. Mivart, tridactyle forcepses, immovably fixed at the base, but capable of a snapping action, certainly exist on some star-fishes; and this is intelligible if they serve, at least in part, as a means of defence. Mr.
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