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
From these facts I conclude, without hesitation, that the
gland itself is a part of an ovarian tube specially modified; and
further, that the cellular matter, which in the ovarian tubes serves for
the development of the ova, is, by the special action of the walls of
the gland, changed into the opaquer cellular matter in the ducts, and
this again subsequently into that tissue or substance, which cements the
Cirripede to its surface of attachment.
As the individuals grow and increase in size, so do the glands and
cement-ducts; but it seems often to happen, that when a specimen is
immovably attached, the cementing apparatus ceases to act, and the
cellular contents of the duct become converted into a thread of
transparent tough cement; the investing membrane, also, of the ducts, in
Conchoderma sometimes becomes hard and mamillated. I have already
alluded to the case of a Pollicipes, in which both glands and ducts, and
even a small portion of the two adjoining ovarian tubes, had become thus
filled up. As in sessile Cirripedes, at every fresh period of growth a
new cement gland is formed, it has occurred to me, that possibly in
Pollicipes something similar may take place. In sessile Cirripedes, the
old cement-glands are all preserved in a functionless condition,
adhering to the membranous or calcareous basis, each new larger one
attached to that last formed, and each giving out cement-ducts, which,
bifurcating in the most complicated manner, pass outside the shell and
thus attach it to some foreign body.
The cement, removed from the outside of a Cirripede, consists of a thin
layer of very tough, bright-brown, transparent, laminated substance,
exhibiting no structure under the highest powers, or at most a very fine
dotted appearance, like a mezzotinto drawing. It is of the nature of
chitine; but boiling caustic potash has rather more effect on it than on
true chitine; and I think boiling nitric acid rather less effect. In one
single instance, namely, in Coronula, the cement comes out of the four
orifices of the two bifurcating ducts, in the shape of distinct cells,
which, between the whale’s skin and the basal membrane, arrange
themselves so as to make a circular, continuous slip of cement; then the
cells blend together, and are converted into transparent, structureless
cement. Cementing tissue or membrane would, perhaps, have been a more
correct title than cement; but, in ordinary cases, its appearance is so
little like that of an organised tissue, that I have for this reason,
and for brevity-sake, preferred the simple term of Cement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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