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
One other instance of coincident structure is so important, that it
must, even in this sketch, be noticed; the prehensile antennæ of
the pupa are most important and complicated organs, and differ in
the different genera of the same family; they are preserved in a
functionless condition throughout life, and in two instances I was able
accurately to compare these organs in the epizoon and in the Cirripede
to which it was attached, and they were identical in every particular.
The full force of the excessive improbability of this resemblance,
and of the above coincidences in structure, on the supposition of the
epizoon and its support not being sexually related, will hardly be
perceived without referring to the facts given in detail in my former
volume.
Lastly, in the case of Cryptophialus (and indirectly in that of
Alcippe) the nature of the male epizoon is, I think, actually
demonstrated; for I traced both it and the female or ordinary form of
Cryptophialus, through the same several larval stages, from the egg,
enclosed within the sack of the female, to the pupa and mature animal.
Moreover, if the male nature and sexual relation to the supporting
Cirripede, be admitted in any one of these epizoons, then so close
is the agreement in habits, and to a certain extent in structure,
in all the foregoing epizoons, that probably no one admitting one
instance would dispute the others, and further evidence would even be
superfluous. Indeed, had it not been for the following facts, I should
not have brought forward, either here in abstract, or in other places
in detail, so many arguments and so much evidence.
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