The Framework of the Bird 



67 



growing on the end of long stalks. We call them almost 

 plants. But they hold a secret from the crabs and snails 

 which crawl about, and when the fishes brush against 



Fig. 43. — A colony of living Boltenia, photographed by the author in the Bay 

 of Fundy. The Boltenia is one of Nature's failures to make a vertebrate. 

 The larva is active and has a notochord; the adult is degenerate and fixed 

 on a stem. Found in five fathoms and deeper off rocky coasts north of Cape 

 Cod. 



them — if their poor dull senses only knew it — they 

 might claim a blood-brotherhood. When they were 

 young, for a little while, a gelatinous notochord was 

 theirs also, but this, with all the hopes that such a be- 



