ECHINODERMS. This subkingdom comprises at present such familiar
forms as the crinoid, the starfish, and the sea urchin. The
structure of echinoderms is radiate. Their integument is hardened
with plates or particles of carbonate of lime.
Of the free echinoderms, such as the starfish and the sea urchin,
the former has been found in the Cambrian rocks of Europe, but
neither have so far been discovered in the strata of this period
in North America. The stemmed and lower division of the
echinoderms was represented by a primitive type, the CYSTOID, so
called from its saclike form, A small globular or ovate "calyx" of
calcareous plates, with an aperture at the top for the mouth,
inclosed the body of the animal, and was attached to the sea
bottom by a short flexible stalk consisting of disks of carbonate
of lime held together by a central ligament.
ARTHOPODS. These segmented animals with "jointed feet," as their
name suggests, may be divided in a general way into water
breathers and air breathers. The first-named and lower division
comprises the class of the CRUSTACEA,--arthropods protected by a
hard exterior skeleton, or "crust,"--of which crabs, crayfish, and
lobsters are familiar examples. The higher division, that of the
air breathers, includes the following classes: spiders, scorpions,
centipedes, and insects.
THE TRILOBITE. The aquatic arthropods, the Crustacea, culminated
before the air breathers; and while none of the latter are found
in the Cambrian, the former were the dominant life of the time in
numbers, in size, and in the variety of their forms. The leading
crustacean type is the TRILOBITE, which takes its name from the
three lobes into which its shell is divided longitudinally. There
are also three cross divisions,--the head shield, the tail shield,
and between the two the thorax, consisting of a number of distinct
and unconsolidated segments. The head shield carries a pair of
large, crescentic, compound eyes, like those of the insect. The
eye varies greatly in the number of its lenses, ranging from
fourteen in some species to fifteen thousand in others. Figure
268, C, is a restoration of the trilobite, and shows the
appendages, which are found preserved only in the rarest cases.
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