A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2): The Lepadidae; Or, Pedunculated CirripedesDarwin, Charles
Science
A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2): The Lepadidae; Or, Pedunculated Cirripedes
Darwin, Charles
Cirripedia; Lepadidae
_Cirri._--The first pair is placed far from the second; the three
posterior pair are long and straight, with their segments much
elongated, not protuberant, bearing four or five pair of long spines,
with little intermediate tufts of minute spines, and with the minutest
spines on the lateral upper edges. Dorsal tufts with one spine extremely
long, equalling a segment and a half in length; the others very short.
Spines all serrated. First cirrus not very short; rami nearly equal,
with the four terminal segments of both tapering; all the basal segments
much thicker, and thickly covered with bristles. Second cirrus (as well
as the third in a less degree), with the anterior ramus thicker than the
posterior ramus, and with all the lower segments in both rami thickly
clothed with three or four longitudinal rows of spines.
_Caudal Appendages_, spinose, uni-articulate; but the specimen was
injured, and I could not exactly make out their shape: I believe it was
oval, and thickly fringed with fine spines.
_Penis_, very small, almost rudimentary, narrow, and hairy, scarcely
exceeding in length the pedicel of the sixth cirrus.
COMPLEMENTAL MALE. Pl. VI, fig. 5.
Before describing the parasite of the present species, which departs
entirely from the character of the males of the three preceding species,
it is proper to state that I consider it to be a Complemental Male
simply from analogy, as will hereafter be more fully shown at the end of
the genus. Had a specimen of the parasite been brought to me without any
information, I should have concluded that it was an immature individual
of a new genus of pedunculated Cirripedes, remarkable from the
rudimentary condition of the valves, and exhibiting, in one important
character, namely, in the form of the larval prehensile antennæ, an
alliance to Scalpellum. Had I been then told that three individuals in a
group, had been found attached to _S. rostratum_, not outside the
valves, but to the integument, in a central line, between the labrum and
the adductor scutorum muscle, in such a position that when the
Scalpellum closed its valves, these parasites were enclosed within the
capitulum, my surprise would have been great; for it is very improbable
that this singular and unparalleled position was accidental in this one
group of specimens, inasmuch as there seems to be a relation between the
naked condition of the capitulum of the parasite, and the protection
afforded to it by the capitulum of the Scalpellum. It further becomes
apparent on reflection, that these minute parasites, though having the
appearance of immaturity, can not increase in size, or but little, for
if they did grow, and acquired an ordinary size, they would either be
killed by the pressure of the scuta of the Scalpellum, or they would
destroy the latter, and in doing so soon lose their own support, and
thus necessarily perish!
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