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
The optic nerve (_i_), running from the plexus to the eye, is of
considerable size; it runs nearly parallel to the main antennular
nerve, diverging from it a little. It retains nearly the same diameter
throughout; and gives off only one single, small, inner branch. It can
be traced beyond the basal edges of the scuta, to just under the upper
edge of the transparent opercular membrane, which unites the scuta
to the sheath of the rostrum. The nerve itself, at a little distance
from its further end, was, in a full-sized specimen, 5/1000ths of an
inch in diameter; widening a little, it expands slightly, and abruptly
terminates in a circular disc, about 8/1000ths of an inch in diameter,
(see Pl. 27, fig. 5). The nerve just beneath this slight expansion,
is coated all round by pellets of dark purple pigment-cells, but not
actually united into a continuous layer. These pigment-cells are
the more conspicuous from the surrounding parts being colourless. I
could not make out distinctly any cornea; and I suppose the external
transparent membrane, to which the above slight circular expansion is
attached, acts as such. This description very closely agrees with that
given of these organs in _Bal. rugosus_ of Gould, (_B. crenatus_?) by
Dr. Leidy,[41] who first discovered the eye in the adult cirripede,
but he did not observe the ophthalmic ganglion. These eyes differ from
those in some of the genera of the Lepadidæ, only in the greater length
of the optic nerve, and by standing laterally further apart from each
other.
[41] 'Proceedings of the Acad. Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia,'
vol. iv, 1848, p. 1. I may add that I have, also, observed the
supra-œsophageal and ophthalmic ganglions in _Bal. perforatus_.
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