The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
We have seen that in the Sea-Urchins the ab-oral region is very
contracted, the oral region and the parts radiating from it and forming
the sides being the predominant features in the structure; and we
shall find, as we proceed in our comparison, that the different
proportion of these three parts, the oral and ab-oral regions and the
sides, determines the different outlines of the various Orders in this
Class. In the Sea-Urchin the oral region and the sides are predominant,
while the ab-oral region is very small. In the Star-Fish, the oral and
ab-oral regions are brought into equal relations, neither
preponderating over the other, and the sides are compressed, so that,
seen in profile, the outline of the Star-Fish is that of a slightly
convex disk, instead of a sphere, as in the Sea-Urchin. But when we
come to the Crinoids, we find that the great preponderance of the
ab-oral region determines all that peculiarity of form that
distinguishes them from the other Echinoderms, while the oral region is
comparatively insignificant. The ab-oral region in the Crinoid rises
to form a sort of cup-like or calyx-like projection. The plates forming
it, which in the Star-Fish or the Sea-Urchin are movable, are soldered
together so as to be perfectly immovable in the Crinoid. Let this
seeming calyx be now prolonged into a stem, and we see at once how
striking is the resemblance to a flower; turn it downwards, an attitude
which is natural to these Crinoids, and the likeness to a drooping
lily is still more remarkable The oral region, with the radiating
ambulacra, is now limited to the small flat area opposite the juncture
of the stem with the calyx; and whether it stretches out to form long
arms, or is more compact, so as to close the calyx like a cup, it
seems in either case to form a flower-like crown. In these groups of
Echinoderms the interambulacral plates are absent; there are no rows
of plates of a different kind alternating with the ambulacral ones, as
in the Sea-Urchins and the Star-Fishes, but the ab-oral region closes
immediately upon the ambulacra.
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