102 OUR CARCINOLOGICAL FRIENDS. 
the beach for some time, the gill-sacs are apt to 
become infiltrated with the sand, when their pe- 
culiar accordion-like disposition becomes apparent. 
When thus distended in irregular rolls they are com- 
monly supposed to represent egg-capsules strung 
together on a ribbon. 
Before dismissing the sub- 
ject of spider forms, it may 
be well to call attention to 
the singular slender (eight- 
legged) creatures that are 
frequently met with on hy- 
SEA-SPIDER. 
sponges. From their dis- 
tinctive forms, and their habit of living in the 
oceanic waters, they have been named ‘sea-spiders’ 
(Pyenogonoids); but their exact relationship has 
not yet been determined. 
THE GOOSE BARNACLE, AND BARNACLES IN GENERAL. 
Of the remarkable traditions which have invested 
the life-histories of many of our animals none is 
perhaps more indicative of a fertile imagination 
than that which ascribes to the barnacle the power 
of giving birth to a fowl (barnacle goose). How 
such a notion could ever have attained currency, 
and met with a firm acquiescence on the part of 
scholars of even a high degree of learning and 
intelligence, is almost inconceivable. Yet we have 
not only acknowledgment of a full belief in this 
miracle, but positive assurances from otherwise re- 
droid colonies and on 
