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
In Pollicipes, the old type-form of the whole order, and in Scalpellum,
we have four valves, (answering to the operculum), surrounding the
aperture leading into the sack, and the valves below are arranged in
successive whorls, with a strong tendency to alternation. For, the
rostrum alternates with, that is faces the interval between, the two
scuta; the carina alternates with the two terga; and the upper lateral
valves alternate with the scutum and tergum on each side. These four
valves, namely, the carina and rostrum, which resemble each other
in structure, and the pair of upper latera, which are larger than
the other lateral valves, together form the uppermost whorl, or that
beneath the scuta and terga. In the next whorl we have the rostro-
and carino-lateral valves, alternating with those above them; and
beneath them there are generally other valves, which decrease in size
and display the same tendency to alternation. The valves here just
specified, namely, the rostrum, carina, and three pairs of lateral
valves, in the Lepadidæ, are so much larger, and are so much more
commonly present, than the other valves of the capitulum, that to
them alone I affixed special names. Now if amongst sessile Cirripedes
we look to that genus, viz., Catophragmus, which comes in its whole
structure the nearest to Pollicipes, one of the Lepadidæ, we find (as
in fig. 4), firstly, a rostrum and carina resembling each other, and
a pair of lateral compartments, larger than the other lateral pairs;
these four valves alternating with the opercular valves: and, secondly,
we find, but forming part of the same whorl, a pair of rostro-lateral
and a pair of carino-lateral compartments, which, just as in
Pollicipes, are larger than the exterior and lower valves. These lower
little valves, I may remark, decrease in size in the successive whorls,
and tend to alternate in position, just as in Pollicipes. Observing
these several striking points of correspondence in the valves, (and
indeed in the whole structure), of Catophragmus and Pollicipes, one
is strongly inclined to suspect that in Catophragmus, and therefore
in Octomeris and other sessile Cirripedes, although the rostro- and
carino-lateral compartments appear to lie in the same whorl with the
rostrum, carina, and large lateral compartments, yet that they really
belong, as in Pollicipes and Scalpellum, to a lower whorl. Now if a
very young shell of Balanus, immediately after the metamorphosis, be
examined, the carino-lateral compartments will be found not to have
been developed; they first appear after two or three zones of growth
have been added to the other compartments; bearing in mind that in
Pollicipes and in Catophragmus the lower whorls are added successively
during growth, we find in this fact strong confirmation of the view
that the carino-lateral compartments normally belong to a whorl beneath
that including the rostrum, carina, and lateral compartments. Whether
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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