A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 2 of 2): The Balanidæ, (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidæ, etc., etc.Darwin, Charles
Science
A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 2 of 2): The Balanidæ, (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidæ, etc., etc.
Darwin, Charles
Balanidae; Cirripedia
1, of a Balanus with the shell, &c., removed from one
side), to the sternal or ventral, inner surface of the carapace,--the
carapace being modified either into the capitulum and peduncle, or into
the shell with its operculum and basis. As a still further consequence
of this change of position of the body of the young Cirripede within
the body of the pupa, the alimentary canal becomes shortened to fully
half its former length. At the same time, the interspace between the
mouth and first pair of legs of the pupa, (consisting of the seventh
and eighth segments of the archetype), is quite lost in the Cirripede
by coalescence. The final cause of the thorax of the young Cirripede
not being developed within the thorax of the pupa, probably is, that
the cirri may be formed of considerable length, so as to be immediately
enabled to seize prey; and that the thorax, which supports the cirri
(and this probably is even more important) should be as free as
possible within the sack, so as to aid the captorial action of the
cirri.
[66] 'Parthenogenesis,' pp. 13 and 26.
After these remarks, more especially with regard to the formation
of the sack, if any one will look at the sectional drawing of a
pedunculated Cirripede in my former volume, or of a sessile Cirripede
(Pl. 25, fig. 1) in this present volume, in which latter the shell adds
to the complexity, he will perceive the cause of the extreme difficulty
in understanding the relative position of the parts throughout the
whole class. Even after I had discovered that the prehensile antennæ
of the pupa might always be found in the centre of the basis or
surface of attachment, and which fact, it might have been thought,
should have convinced me that this was the anterior end of the whole
animal, yet still I fancied that the prominent mouth represented the
entire head, and that the shell was something quite distinct. It is
clear that others have been equally perplexed; for that which is the
anterior end in the eyes of one naturalist, is the posterior end in
the eyes of another; so with the dorsal and ventral surfaces: one
naturalist considers the peduncle of the Lepas as the abdomen; another
considers it as a pair of metamorphosed, thoracic limbs, &c.! The
probable position of the segments of the body of a mature Cirripede,
in relation to the three anterior cephalic segments, or carapace, is
shown in the diagram (Pl. 25, fig. 6) of the supposed position of the
mature Proteolepas within its pupal envelopes. Here, in the diagram,
the two segments immediately succeeding the mouth (_c_), which are the
seventh and eighth of the archetype, (for the mouth consists of three
segments, and all in front of the mouth of three other segments),
have come to adhere by their dorsal surfaces to the internal surface
of the carapace,--that is, of the first three segments, which ought
of course to have stood quite in advance of these two segments, and
these two segments again ought to have stood in advance of the mouth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account