A LIVING CAST-NET. 49 



sensitive organs of touch, or some analogous sense, 

 which inform the animal of the presence, and perhaps 

 of the nature, of objects within reach. At the same 

 time I remarked that the outer foot-jaws fpedipalps) 

 were employed alternately in making casts, being 

 thrown out deliberately, but without intermission, and 

 drawn in, exactly in the manner of the fringed hand 

 of a Barnacle, of which both the organ and the action 

 strongly reminded me. I looked at this more closely 

 with the aid of a lens : each foot-jaw formed a perfect 

 spoon of hairs, which at every cast expanded, and 

 partly closed. That you may understand this better 

 I must say, that the foot-jaw resembles a sickle in 

 form, being composed of five joints, of which the last 

 four are curved like the blade of that implement. 

 Each of these joints is set along its inner edge with a 

 row of parallel bristles, of which those of the last joint 

 arch out in a semi-circle, continuing the curve of the 

 limb ; the rest of the bristles are curved parallel or 

 concentrical with these, but diminish in length as they 

 recede downwards. It will be seen therefore that 

 when the joints of the foot-jaw are thrown out, ap- 

 proaching to a straight line, the curved hairs are 

 made to diverge; but as the cast is made, they resume 

 their parallelism, and sweep in, as with a net, the 

 atoms of the embraced water. 



The microscope revealed to me a still higher per- 

 fection in this admirable contrivance. I then saw 

 that every individual bristle is set on each side with 

 a row of short stiff hairs, projecting nearly at right 

 angles to its length ; these hairs meeting point to 

 point those of the next bristle,, and so on in succes- 



F 



