[296] Ibid. p. 332.
Specimens of these Goniasters are sometimes met with attached to a nodule of flint, in an extraordinary state of freshness; sharp imprints of the external surface, the skeleton having perished, are also found in flints, and, rarely, casts in pyrites. The whetstone of Dorsetshire often bears distinct moulds of Goniasters! I have found ossicula of this form of Star-fish in the London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey.
Asterias. [Lign. 99.]—The animals of this genus, of which the common Star-fish is the type, are stellate in form; the rays are flat, and extend from the body, of which they are a prolongation—not mere appendages. They have deep grooves or furrows bordered by marginal plates, which are continued to the extremities.
The Lias of Germany has yielded several species of Asterias; one of which is figured, [Lign. 99]. A very large species occurs in the Cornbrash of the Oolite of England. A magnificent specimen of Asterias arenicola (Goldfuss), from the calcareous grit, near Pickering, Yorkshire, measuring 101/2 inches from the extremity of one ray to that of another, is figured in the London Palæontological Journal, pl. xvii. The same work contains admirable figures of Ophiura Egertoni, and Oph. senatu in flint, pl. xix.; Oph. Milleri in Staithes marlstone, and Oph. Murravii, pl. xx.; and two specimens of Oph. Milleri on the same slab of Lias from Staithes, near Whitby, pl. viii.
The Star-fishes of the British palæozoic strata are described by Prof. E. Forbes in the Memoirs of the Geol. Survey, Decad. 1.[297]
[297] See also Prof. M'Coy's Lower Palæozoic Fossils, p. 58.
Lign. 99. Fossil Star-fish. Lias, Wirtemberg.
Asterias prisca. (Goldfuss.)