SHIP BARNACLES 93 



PLATE XXX 

 SHIP BARNACLES (2) 



These creatures are first-cousins, so to 

 speak, of the acorn shells, and they are called 

 "Ship Barnacles" because they are so very 

 fond of fastening themselves to the bottoms 

 of ships. Even after two or three months, 

 indeed, the hull of a vessel is often quite 

 covered with them below the water-line, and 

 they check her speed so greatly that she 

 has to be taken into dock to have them 

 scraped off before she can set out upon an- 

 other voyage. 



You may generally find quite a number of 

 these barnacles on the pieces of timber which 

 are so often flung up by the waves after a 

 storm. And you will notice that each of them 

 grows, as it were, upon a kind of stalk, in- 

 stead of being fastened down to the surface 

 of the wood, as the acorn shells are upon 

 the rocks. This stalk consists of the pillar of 

 cement with which the little animal covered its 

 feelers just before it changed its form for the 

 last time. 



There are a good many other kinds of 



