1282 BARNACLES FROM DEEP-SKA CABLES. 



Thus, of nine forms, six, or two-thirds, are only known from a 

 small series of less than a hundred specimens. Tin's is the more 

 remarkable from the fact that some eighty species of bottom-haunt- 

 ing Cirripedia P.edunculata were represented in the collection made 

 by the Dutch ' Sibbga' Expedition in the seas of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago. 



Xow the greater part of the sea-bottom is soft, buried in deep 

 ooze; and fixed sessile organisms must often have great difficulty 

 in finding solid objects to which to attach themselves on settling 

 down in life. To such organisms a telegraph cable is a godsend. 

 A scientific expedition, no matter how well equipped, may dredge 

 over the sea-bottom for thousands of miles and discover no nidus 

 .so favourable. Deep-sea Cirripedes are usually fixed to the more 

 solid parts of other organisms such as the anchor-fibres of Hexac- 

 tinellid sponges like Hyalonema or the stems of colonial Coelente- 

 rates. These organisms grow anchored in the ooze. The surface 

 •of attachment is, however, small. Other favourite bases for deep- 

 sea barnacles are the manganese nodules that form themselves round 

 bodies such as the teeth of dead sharks, the solid ear-bones of 

 whales, and cinders dropped from passing ships. Hut even these, 

 if the vast area of the sea-bottom be considered, must be scanty 

 upon it. When the larvae of a barnacle, produced as they are in 

 liundreds if not thousands simultaneously, chance on a cable at the 

 moment of fixation, it is evident that a much larger proportion of 

 them will survive than would otherwise he the case. A large num- 

 ber of the species of the group known from depths greater than 100 

 fathoms are only known at most from a few isolated specimens. 

 One species (Scalpellum albatrossianum, Pilsbry) only exists so 

 far as museums are concerned in two individuals, one of which was 

 dredged by the * Albatross ' in the north Atlantic from 2045 

 fathoms, the other by the ' Investigator ' in the Bay of Bengal 

 from 1997 fathoms. Two-thirds of the species in Capt. Worsley's 

 collection are, however, represented by series of ten or more speci- 

 mens each. 



The barnacles are not only remarkable for their abundance but 

 •also for their large size. Only one of the species (Heteralepas 

 malaysiana) can be called a small one, while no less than three of the 

 nine species are, each in its own genus, the largest known, namely 

 Scalpellum stearnsi, Poecilasma gigas 1 and Heteralepas gigas. S. 

 persona is also among the most bulky of the Pedunculata. More- 

 over, the type-specimen of S. inerme (= S. stearnsi), found by 

 Capt. Worsley on a cable .in Bali Straits, is the largest individual 

 of its species as yet recorded, while the examples of aS'. hamulus 

 from cables are twice the size of those found attached to small 

 objects by the ' Siboga ' at about the same depth. 



1. In P. subcarinatum (Pilsbry) from the Atlantic the eapitulmn is 

 ;at least as big but the peduncle is shorter. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



