There is one other point of structure in the shells of the Balanidæ, more especially of species like _Balanus tintinnabulum_, which adds to their apparent complexity, namely, that the rim or orifice of the shell formed by the upper ends of the compartments, projects considerably above the opercular valves. In a young Balanus, immediately after the metamorphosis, the operculum is attached by the opercular membrane all round to the summits of the compartments, and there cannot be said to be any orifice to the shell itself, but only an orifice or slit between the opercular valves; but during growth, as the compartments are added to at their basal edges, their upper ends are deserted, and cease to enclose the sack, within which lies the animal's body. Hence the upper ends come to project freely, either quite separately as in some species of Pollicipes, where they cannot be said to form an orifice; or more or less united into a ring so as to form an orifice, as in the different species of Balanidæ. It follows, that to understand the real shape of a Balanus, or rather of the cavity enclosing the animal's body, all that part of the shell which projects above the opercular membrane, may, in imagination, be removed as something extraneous, like so many spines; not that I mean to say that these points of shell are dead; on the contrary, they are often porose and penetrated by numerous threads of corium. This upper part of the shell, thus produced so as to form an orifice, no doubt serves to protect the less strong and moveable operculum. [Illustration: Fig. 4. Octomeris. Fig. 5. Chthamalus. Fig. 6. Chamæsipho. Fig. 7. Balanus. Fig. 8. Tetraclita. _a_, Rostrum; _b_, Rostro-lateral, _c_, Lateral, _d_, Carino-lateral compartment; _e_, Carina. Horizontal sections through the Shells of the principal genera of Balanidæ, showing the arrangement of the Compartments. Genera 4, 5, and 6 belong to the Chthamalinæ; 7 and 8 to the Balaninæ.]