EN'CRINITES, a name applied generally to the fossil crinoidea, a family of echino dermata (q.v.). The popular name, atone lilies, is given to the numerous fossil species, from the resemblance which many of them present when the rays are closed to the lily. Hence also the name crinoidea. Crinoids are characterized by having their bodies sup ported, during the whole or part of their existence, on a longer or shorter jointed calca reous stem. The stem is attached either by the expanded base, or by jointed processes, to the rocky bed of the sea, or perhaps, in some cases, to floating bodies, like barnacles. Occasionally, numerous root-like side-arms are sent out from the base of the stem to strengthen and support it; and in some species, as in the recent pentacrinus, the column throughout its length is furnished with axillary side-arms. The stem is round or five sided; in one genus only is it elliptical. It is composed of a number of joints, perforated In the center, for the passage of a soft portion of the animal, and beautifully sculptured on the articulating surfaces. The body is cup-shaped, and composed of many-sided plates on the under surface, to the center of which the stalk is attached, while the upper surface is covered with a coriaccous skin, protected by many small plates. On this was situated the mouth, which was frequently pToboscidiform, and near it was the anal orifice—the alimentary canal being turned upon itself, as in the bryozoa. The arms spring from the edges of the cup. They are five in number at their origin, but, with few exceptions, speedily divide and subdivide dichotomously. The arms are com posed of articulated calcareous joints, similar to those of the stems. Each joint is fur nished with two slender-jointed appendages or cirri, of use to the animal in capturing its prey, which consisted of mollusca and other small animals. The number of joints in some species is truly amazing. Dr. Buckland calculated that pentacrinus briareus consists of at least 150,000; and "as each joint," according to Carpenter, "was fur nished with at least two bundles of muscular fiber—one for its extension, the other for its contraction—we have 300,000 such in the body of a single pentacrinus, an amount of muscular apparatus far exceeding anything that has elsewhere been observed in the animal kingdom."
E. are represented in the British seas by one species, contatula rosacea, which in its perfect state is free, and moves about in the same manner as other star-fishes, but is in its structure a true crinoid, and, in fact, when young, has the flexible stalk character istic of the order. It is doubtful whether more than one species (pentacrinus medusa) of permanently stalked E. lives in modern seas. It is a native of the West Indian seas.
The family commenced its existence with the earliest sedimentary deposits. Sev enty-three genera have been described, containing upwards of 300 species, two thirds of which are found only in paleozoic rocks. The most ancient E. have nearly all round stems, the few that are five-sided having the articulated surface of the joints simply radiated, and not complexly sculptured as in pentaeriuus, the type of a division of the order which appears first in the lias. The earlier seas literally swarmed with these ani mals. " We may judge," says Dr. Buckland, of the degree to which the individual crinoids multiplied among the first inhabitants of the sea, from the countless myriads of their petrified remains which fill so many limestone beds of the older formations, and compose vast strata of entrochal marble, extending over large tracts of country in North ern Europe and North America. The substance of this marble is often almost as entirely made up of the petrified bones of encrinites, as a corn-rick is composed of straws.' See CRINOIDEIE and PENTACRINUS,