178 SHELLS AND MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS. 



When ships thus covered arrive in onr ports, the 

 barnacles are eagerly scraped off by men who take 

 them for sale as marine curiosities, or who make 

 their delicate white porcelain-like shells into some 



kinds of fancy shell-work. The barnacles them- 

 selves are eaten on some of the coasts of Africa, 

 where they are very abundant. The shell of this 

 animal is at the end of a fleshy stalk, generally of 

 a purplish red, sometimes of a bright orange colour, 

 and is of the form called multivalve, being com- 

 posed of five pieces of valves, two of them on each 

 side of the animal, and a narrow piece down the 



