In no group of the Animal Kingdom is the fertility of invention more
striking than in the Crinoids. They seem like the productions of one
who handles his work with an infinite ease and delight, taking pleasure
in presenting the same thought under a thousand different aspects.
Some new cut of the plates, some slight change in their relative
position is constantly varying their outlines, from a close cup to an
open crown, from the long pear-shaped oval of the calyx in some to its
circular or square or pentagonal form in others. An angle that is
simple in one projects by a fold of the surface and becomes a fluted
column in another; a plate that was smooth but now has here a
symmetrical figure upon it drawn in beaded lines; the stem which is
perfectly unbroken in one, except by the transverse divisions common to
them all, in the next puts out feathery plumes at every such transverse
break. In some the plates of the stem are all rigid and firmly soldered
together; in others they are articulated upon each other in such a
manner as to give it the greatest flexibility, and allow the seeming
flower to wave and bend upon its stalk. It would require an endless
number of illustrations to give even a faint idea of the variety of
these fossil Crinoids.
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