132 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



and the butterfly-like Pteropod, were subjects used by 

 these artists for which they found terrestrial counterparts. 

 The sea-horse was convertible decoratively into a true 

 horse, with intermediate phases imagined by the artists ; 

 the sea-urchin into a hedgehog, the sea-anemone into a 

 flower, and the Pteropod into a true butterfly. These 

 artists loved to exercise a little fancy and ingenuity. 

 By gradual reduction in the number and size of out- 

 standing parts — a common rule in the artistic " schematiz- 

 ing " or " conventional simplification " of natural form — 

 they converted the octopus and the argonaut, with their 

 eight arms, into a bull's head with a pair of spiral horns 

 (Fig. 14). In the same spirit it seems that they 

 observed and drew the barnacle floating on timber or 

 thrown up after a storm on their shores. They detected 

 a resemblance in the marking of its shells to the plumage 

 of a goose, whilst in the curvature of its stalk they saw a 

 resemblance to the long neck of the bird. The barnacle's 

 jointed plumose legs or cirri and other details suggested 

 points of agreement with the feathers of the bird. They 

 brought the barnacle and the goose together, not guided 

 thereto by any pre-existing legend, but by a simple and 

 not uncommon artistic desire to follow up a superficial 

 suggestion of similarity and to conceive of intermediate 

 connecting forms. Some of their fanciful drawings with 

 this purpose are shown in Figs. 15, 16, and 17. These 

 (excepting the drawing of the barnacle lying within its 

 opened shell) are copied from M. Houssay's paper on the 

 subject, and were taken from the work of M. Perrot on 

 Cretan pottery. 



The intention of the artist to fantastically insist on 

 intermediate phases between goose and barnacle is 

 placed beyond doubt by certain details. For instance, 

 in Fig. 16, the little jointed processes on the back 



