rs.

Many miles inland, even on high mountains, we may sometimes see thousands
of little joints, or bead-like forms, imbedded in great rocky cliffs. They
have been given the name of St. Cuthbert's beads. Occasionally in the
vicinity of these fossils--for such they are--are found impressions of a
graceful, flower-like head, with many delicately divided petals, fixed
forever in the hard relief of stone. The name of stone lilies has been
applied to them. The beads were once strung together in the form of a long
stem, and at the top the strangely beautiful animal-lily nodded its head
in the currents of some deep sea, which in the long ago of the earth's age
covered the land--millions of years before the first man or beast or bird
drew breath.

It was for a long time supposed that these wonderful creatures were
extinct, but dredges have brought up from the dark depths of the sea
actual living stone lilies, or _crinoids_, this being their real name. Few
of us will probably ever have an opportunity of studying a crinoid alive,
although in our museums we may see them preserved in glass jars. That,
however, detracts nothing from the marvel of their history and
relationship. They send root-like organs deep into the mud, where they
coil about some shell and there cling fast. Then the stem grows tall and
slender, and upon the summit blooms or is developed the animal-flower. Its
nourishment is not drawn from the roots and the air, as is that of the
daisy, but is provided by the tiny creatures which swim to its tentacles,
or are borne thither by the ocean currents. Some of these crinoids, as if
impatient of their plant-like life and asserting their animal kinship, at
last tear themselves free from their stem and float off, turn over, and
thereafter live happily upon the bottom of the sea, roaming where they
will, creeping slowly along and fulfilling the destiny of our imaginary
daisy.

And here a comparison comes suddenly to mind. How like to a many-rayed
starfish is our creeping crinoid! Few of us, unless we had studies about
these creatures, could distinguish between a crinoid and one of the frisky
little dancing stars, or serpent stars, which are so common in the rocky
caves along our coast. This relationship is no less real than apparent.
The hard-skinned "five finger," or common starfish, which we may pick up
on any beach, while it never grew upon a stem, yet still preserves the
radial symmetry of its stalked ancestors. Pick u