I have already in a previous article named the different Orders of this
Class in their relative rank, and have compared the standing of the
living ones, according to the greater or less complication of their
structure, with the succession of the fossil ones. Of the five Orders,
Beches-de-Mer, Sea-Urchins, Star-Fishes, Ophiurans, and
Crinoids,--or, to name them all according to their scientific
nomenclature, Holothurians, Echinoids, Asteroids, Ophiurans, and
Crinoids,--the last-named are lowest in structure and earliest in time.
Cuvier was the first naturalist who detected the true nature of the
Crinoids, and placed them where they belong in the classification of
the Animal Kingdom. They had been observed before, and long and
laborious investigations had been undertaken upon them, but they were
especially baffling to the student, because they were known only in the
fossil condition from incomplete specimens; and though they still have
their representatives among the type of Echinoderms as it exists at
present, yet, partly owing to the rarity of the living specimens and
partly to the imperfect condition of the fossil ones, the relation
between them was not recognized. The errors about them certainly did
not arise from any want of interest in the subject among naturalists,
for no less than three hundred and eighty different authors have
published their investigations upon the Crinoids, and the books that
have been printed about these animals, many of which were written long
before their animal nature was suspected, would furnish a library in
themselves.
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