BABNACLES. 225 



Its extreme flexibility, produced by the number of its 

 joiats, enables the fingers of the hand, or the threads 

 of the net (which you will) to stretch out or to curl up 

 alternately, while the number of the divergent fingers 

 enables the animal to grasp a comparatively large bulk 

 of water in those curling organs. Tliese, then, form a 

 sieve ; the water passes through the interstices of the 

 fingers, while the tiny atoms of solid matter, or the 

 equally minute animalcules that constitute the food of 

 the Barnacle, are sifted out, and detained by the fingers, 

 which curling inward carry whatever is captured to 

 the mouth. 



But see how greatly the perfection of the instru- 

 ment is enhanced by the projecting hairs with which 

 every one of the numerous joints is beset. These, 

 standing out at right angles (or nearly so) to the direc- 

 tion of the finger, meet their fellows from the joints of 

 the next finger, and crossing their points, fill the inter- 

 stices with an innumerable series of finer meshes, — • 

 meshes of such delicacy that it is next to impossible that 

 any organized body inclosed in the given area should 

 escape. 



But there is more in them than merely this minute 

 and wide-spread ramification. They are, as we have 

 seen, organs of touch ; so that the net has not only the 

 mechanical power of capture^ common to an inanimate 

 cast-net which a human fisher uses, but is endowed 

 with the most exquisite sensibility in every part. The 

 slightest contact of an animalcule in the inclosed- water 

 with one of those thousands of sensitive hairs, com- 

 municates instantly an impression to the sensorium, 

 and a consciousness of the fact to the Barnacle ; who 

 is thus, without doubt, able with the quickness of 

 10* 



