142 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 



sheds his old shell; the ship sails around, and is 

 hindered by them, till it can be put into a dry- 

 dock, where its barnacles can be scraped off. If 

 there is a river near-by, it may be sailed up into 

 fresh water, where the barnacles will die of their 

 own accord, for they cannot live without salt. 



But the poor whale cannot escape, and he 

 must carry his unpleasant passengers all over the 

 ocean. For, though he is big and strong, he is 

 very helpless in some respects. It is said that 

 whales select a lonely shore, at certain times of 

 the year, and rub themselves against the rocks, 

 to free their skins from the hated barnacles. I 

 suppose they dislike barnacles as much as smaller 

 creatures dislike fleas. 



And are many creatures in the sea troubled in 

 the same way? 



O yes; there seem to be many that are thus 

 troubled. There is a degraded kind of barnacle 

 that attaches itself to the body of a crab and gets 

 all its nourishment from the crab's blood. It is 

 a very mean way of living, but the barnacle pays 

 the penalty. 



What is that, pray? 



Why, he loses almost all his organs, and be- 

 comes a mere useless sack, without eyes or legs, 

 or even digestive organs. He does no good, so 



