ON CIRROPODA. 429 
place themselves at some inches from the line of water, and 
especially near the helm. 
The PoLLIcIPEs, which now forms a subgenus of anatifa, 
derives its name, as is said, from the resemblance which the 
ancients imagined they could perceive between it and the 
nail of the thumb, or the great toe. A strong, thick, and short 
tube, of a conical form, shagreened, as it were, by a great 
number of little valves which cover it, and five large valves, 
constitute the character of the species on which this sub- 
genus is founded. Its individuals are found united in groups 
of twenty, or more, of different size, in the Mediterranean, on 
the coasts of Spain, Normandy, Brittany, &c. They serve 
for food in many countries, after having been boiled in water. 
A notion has even been entertained that they are aphrodisiac. 
Their flesh, according to Rondelet, becomes red by boiling, 
like that of the lobster. 
The lepas aurita, or leporina, is our author’s subgenus 
Otton. This species has a very remarkable conformation. 
The tube is dilated into a coriaceous sac, which contains the 
animal. Five very small valves are, as it were, dispersed 
over the surface of this sac, which has two appendages 
formed like an ear at the superior and posterior part. It has 
been found in several of the European seas. 
The BALANI have also been named sea-acorns, from some 
sort of resemblance to the fruit of the oak. They are mol- 
lusca which have the greatest analogy with the anatifee ; ac- 
cordingly Linneus united them together under the same 
generic name, notwithstanding the great differences existing 
in their envelope. We observe in the balani, as in the 
anatifee, twelve pairs of articulated tentacule, a transparent 
tube between the bases of the two most elevated pairs; a 
mouth similarly placed both in one and the other, and also 
surrounded by analogous organs; and an internal organiza- 
tion absolutely similar in all that is essential. The eggs, as 
