NATURE ADRIFT 



and the stalked barnacles (Plate XV and Fig. 21 ; 7). These are, of course, 

 attached, but almost always to floating objects, pieces of wood, bottles, 

 ships' bottoms and particularly to pieces of floating weed. They are thus 

 carried about and, except for those attached to ships, are at the mercy of the 

 currents and they can thus be regarded as planktonic. They are mostly 

 warm-water forms but they are often stranded on the seashore still attached 

 to their floating object. One species Lcpas fasicuLvis grows a spongelike float 

 of its own. 



These stalked barnacles, often called goose barnacles, are associated with 

 a most extraordinary legend, once widely believed though we can now 

 hardly credit it. The legend, judging from designs on Mycenaean pottery, 

 dates back to the nebulous past of some three thousand years ago, and it 

 spread from Troy to Britain and Ireland, and by the Caucasus to hidia and 

 Japan. Wood, floating at sea becomes infested with barnacles and the 

 rotting tree trunks and timbers from wrecked ships become washed ashore, 

 sometimes to places where geese are feeding. It was thought that the shelled 

 barnacles, with their long 'neck', somewhat goose-shaped shells and feathery 

 feeding appendages turned into young goslings. Embellishments arose and 

 it was sometimes stated that barnacles grew on the living trees near the 

 water's edge and they fell off into the water to grow into geese. This origin 

 of 'barnacle geese' was accepted as authoritative from the eleventh to the 

 end of the sixteenth century. As late as 1597 the English observer John 

 Gerard described in detail how he 'saw' the whole process himself 

 at a place on the Lancashire coast called the 'Pile of Foulders'. Since then 

 belief in the story gradually died but the name of the 'barnacle goose' 

 remains and the barnacle is called Lcpas anatifcm, meaning 'goose barnacle'. 

 According to the legend, the barnacles grow as part of the timber and must 

 thus be of vegetable origin; therefore the geese must also be of vegetable 

 origin. This remarkable piece of logic led to the barnacle goose being con- 

 sidered in all good faith as acceptable lenten fare by Roman Catholics, this in 

 spite of a Papal Bull issued by Pope Innocent III in 12 15 forbidding the 

 eating of barnacle geese in Lent. The somewhat rubbery stalks of these 

 barnacles arc included in various sea-food recipes particularly in Spain, 

 Portugal and Mediterranean countries. 



Next in the list of planktonic crustaceans is the class Malacostraea, the 

 'top' class, which includes a number of orders containing the larger and 

 more familiar crustaceans. One of the lesser known of these is the Cumacea, 

 which are here only mentioned in passing. They are all small (Fig. 19; 10) 

 and inhabit the sandy or muddy sea floor or live amongst the weeds in 

 rock pools, but sometimes swim sufficiently far off the bottom to be caught 

 by a plankton net near the bottom or in inshore waters. 



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