96 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 
several successive strokes, and then stops for 
a little. ‘During the period of rest the body 
sinks slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, but 
never so much that it cannot recover its 
position in the water after the first few 
strokes.” 
THE STORY OF THE FLOATING BARNACLE 
Barnacles are strange crustaceans which 
give up free-swimming when they are very 
young and attach themselves to drifting logs 
or the keels of ships. Even a sea-snake has 
been seen with a big bunch on its tail, and 
some of the unstalked acorn-shells, which are 
second cousins of the stalked barnacles, are 
found attached to the skin of whales. 
The newly hatched barnacle is like the 
newly hatched larva of many of the lower 
crustaceans. It has a body a little like half a 
pear cut lengthwise and about the size of a 
small pinhead. It has a median eye on the 
top of its head and three pairs of swimming 
appendages. It is called a Nauplius, but that 
is neither here nor there. It feeds and grows 
and moults, changing its form into what is 
called a Cyprid larva. This seems to become 
