98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to be found accounts of not a few wonderful things in the way of 

 zoological curiosities tells us that in a certain " contre and be all 

 yonde, ben great plenty of Crokodilles, that is, a manner of a long 

 Serpent as I have seyd before." He further remarks that " these Ser- 

 pents slew men," and devoured them, weeping ; and he tells us, too, 

 that "whan thei eaten thei meven (move) the over jowe (upper jaw), 

 and nought the nether (lower) jowe : and thei have no tonge (tongue)." 

 Sir John thus states two popular beliefs of his time and of days prior 

 to his age, namely, that crocodiles moved their upper jaws, and that a 

 tongue was absent in these animals. 



As regards the tears of the crocodiles, no foundation of fact exists 

 for the belief m such sympathetic exhibitions. But a highly probable 

 explanation may be given of the manner in which such a belief origi- 

 nated. These reptiles unquestionably emit very loud and singularly 

 plaintive cries, compared by some travelers to the mournful howling 

 of dogs. The earlier and credulous travelers would very naturally 

 associate tears with these cries, and, once begun, the supposition would 

 be readily propagated, for error and myth are ever plants of quick 

 growth. The belief in the movement of the upper jaw rests on an 

 apparent basis of fact. The lower jaw is joined to the skull very far 

 back on the latter, and the mouth-opening thus comes to be singularly 

 wide ; while, when the mouth opens, the skull and upper jaw are ap- 

 parently observed to move. This is not the case, however ; the appar- 

 ent movement arising from the manner in which the lower jaw and 

 the skull are joined together. The belief in the absence of the tongue 

 is even more readily explained. When the mouth is widely opened, 

 no tongue is to be seen. This organ is not only present, but is, more- 

 over, of large size ; it is, however, firmly attached to the floor of the 

 mouth, and is specially adapted, from its peculiar form and structure, 

 to assist these animals in the capture and swallowing of their prey. 



One of the most curious fables regarding animals which can well 

 be mentioned is that respecting the so-called " bernicle " or " barnacle 

 geese," which by the naturalists and educated persons of the middle 

 ages were believed to be produced by those little crustaceans named 

 "barnacles." With the "barnacles" every one must be familiar who 

 has examined the floating drift-wood of the sea-beach, or who has seen 

 ships docked in a seaport town. A barnacle is simply a kind of crab 

 inclosed in a triangular shell, and attached by a fleshy stalk to fixed 

 objects. If the barnacle is not familiar to readers, certain near rela- 

 tions of these animals must be well known, by sight at least, as among 

 the most familiar denizens of our seacoasts. These latter are the 

 " sea-acorns " or Balani, whose little conical shells we crush by hun- 

 dreds as we walk over the rocks at low- water mark ; while every 

 wooden pile immersed in the sea becomes coated in a short time with 

 a thick crust of these "sea-acorns." If we place one of these little 

 animals, barnacle or acorn the latter wanting the stalk of the former 



