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
Considering this simplicity in growth and form of the separated
compartments, it seems at first surprising that the construction
and enlargement of the whole shell in Balanus, should long have been
viewed as a difficulty. But the radii, from growing against rectangular
indentations, or rather furrows, in the opposed compartments, come to
be set a little inwards; and their external surfaces assume a very
different appearance from the wall-portions of the compartments,
which grow against the surface of attachment. In different species,
the summits of the radii (and of the alæ) grow either very much more
obliquely than in the species figured, or more squarely--that is,
they extend from tip to tip of the adjoining compartments, parallel
to the basis. In this latter case, and when the surfaces of the radii
differ considerably in appearance from the walls, as in _Balanus
tintinnabulum_ (Plate 1), I am not at all surprised that the radii
should have been described as separate elements, and called "areæ
interjectæ," or "compartments of the second order:" for the shell of
this Balanus seems to be composed of six wedges with their points
upwards, namely, the parietal portions of the compartments, and of
six other narrower wedges, the radii, with their points downwards;
and the fact that these latter wedges consist simply of the sides
of the parietal portions, modified by growing against the adjoining
compartments, is completely masked. I should add, that sometimes the
radii are not developed, which simply means that the overlapping
lateral edges of the compartments have not been added to during growth.
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