A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2): The Lepadidae; Or, Pedunculated CirripedesDarwin, Charles
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A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2): The Lepadidae; Or, Pedunculated Cirripedes
Darwin, Charles
Cirripedia; Lepadidae
_Internal Viscera._--Within the body, in front of the mouth, it was easy
to find the stomach (with two pear-shaped cæca at the upper end),
running first anteriorly, and then curving back and reaching the anus by
a long rectum, difficult to be followed: it appeared, however, to me,
that this stomach had more relation to the young Cirripede, of which
every part could now generally be traced, than to the larva, with its
closed and rudimentary mouth: the fact, however, of its being prolonged
to the anus, which is in a different position in the larva and mature
state, shows that the stomach serves, at least, as an excretory channel.
Besides the stomach, the several muscles already alluded to, and much
pulpy and oily matter, the only other internal organs consist of two
long, rather thick, gut-formed masses, into the anterior ends of which
the cement-ducts running from the prehensile antennæ could be traced.
These masses are formed of irregular orange balls, about .001 of an inch
in diameter, made up of rather large cells, so to have a grape-like
appearance, held together by a transparent pale yellowish substance, but
apparently not enclosed in a membrane: these masses lie rather
obliquely, and approach each other at their anterior ends; they extend
from above the compound eyes, to the cæca of the stomach to which they
cohere, but in young specimens, they extend some way beyond the cæca,
between the folds of the carapace. The two cement-ducts, at the points
where they enter these bodies, expand and are lost; at this point, also,
the little orange-coloured masses of cells have the appearance of being
broken down into a finer substance. Within the cement-ducts I saw a
distinct chord of rather opaque cellular matter. We shall presently see,
that these gut-formed masses are the incipient ovaria.
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