26 REMARKABLE TRAXSFORMATIOX. 



One extraordinary circumstance connected with the 

 history of these cirrhopodous creatures is, the transfor- 

 mation which the young undergo, from active animals, 

 endowed with the powers of locomotion and the organs 

 of vision, to fixed beings, destitute of sight, and enclosed 

 in a multivalve shell. Cuvier observed that the bar- 

 nacle deposits its eggs in layers, between the body and 

 the mantle ; and Mr. Thompson, to whom science is 

 greatly indebted for many important discoveries relative 

 to the mollusca, the zoophytes, etc., states that the eggs, 

 at a certain period, are found forming a pair of leaf- like 

 expansions on each side of the body of the animal, and 

 the living membrane of the shells. These leaves or 

 plates of eggs are at first small, but as the eggs advance 

 in progress, they extend in every direction, and lap over 

 each other on the back : during their increase they pass 

 from a bluish colour, through paler tints, to a delicate 

 pink ; and become when ready to be hatched of a dull 

 white. 



"\Mien excluded from the egg, as was first discovered 

 by Mr. Thompson, with respect to the young of one 

 of the balani, or sessile cirrhopods, the newly -hatched 

 beings rather resemble some of the minute Crustacea, 

 than the mature of their own species, being endowed 

 with locomotive organs, and swimming- freelv about. 



