284 NOVEMBER. 



In this stage the little animal searches about for some 

 spot suitable for permanent residence ; a ship's bottom, 

 a piece of floating timber, the back of a whale or turtle, 

 or the solid rock. When its selection is made, the two 

 antennae, which project from the shell, pour out a gluti- 

 nous gum or cement, which hardens in water, and firmly 

 attaches them. Henceforth the animal is a fixture, 

 glued by the front of its head to its support. Another 

 moult now takes place ; the bivalve shell is thrown off, 

 with the great eyes, and their u-like processes, and the 

 little Cirripede is seen in its true form. It is now in 

 effect a Stomapod Crustacean, attached by its antennas, 

 the head greatly lengthened (in Lepas, etc.), the carapace 

 composed of several pieces (valves), the legs modified 

 into cirri, and made to execute their grasping move- 

 ments backwards instead of forwards, and the whole 

 abdomen obliterated, or reduced to an inconspicuous 

 rudiment. 



Let us resume our grubbing in the heterogeneous heap 

 of matters with which the dredge has enriched us. The 

 tube- dwelling Annelida are generally prominent in such 

 collections, and accordingly we see conspicuous here 

 great and small heaps of contorted tubes, that look as 

 if a batch of tobacco-pipe stems had become agglutin- 

 ated together, and strangely twisted in the baking. 

 These are the shelly tubes of the beautiful scarlet Ser- 



