66 LEPAS. 



not, as it is generally described, of a saffron colour, but 

 brown as in the figure. It was much too long to be 

 introduced into an octavo plate, we have therefore re- 

 presented only a portion attached to a piece of wood, 

 its usual support. This pedicle resembles a small in- 

 testine; it is tendinous, cylindrical, and capable of 

 great contraction ; while the animal is alive it is filled 

 with a glairy mucilage, which exsudes after death, and 

 leaves the foot stalk empty and withered. 



This shell is very abundant in many parts of the 

 world. Linnaeus noticed it in the North ; Muller on 

 the coast of Denmark ; Pennant and others in the 

 British seas ; Plancus in the Mediterranean ; and Seba 

 and Davila in the Asiatic ocean. It adheres to the 

 bottoms of ships, and to floating pieces of wood. 



An idle story was formerly told about the capability 

 of this shell to produce the Barnacle Goose, and, like 

 other idle stories, was readily believed. Old Gerard, 

 with inflexible credulity, declares that the shell con- 

 tains a young bird, which " when it is perfectly 

 formed, the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that 

 appeareth is the lace, or string (the plumose tentacula) ; 

 next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it 

 groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, till at 

 length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill : 

 in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and 

 falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and 

 groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard and lesser 

 than a goose," &c. Gerard prefaces his account with 

 " what our eyes have seene, and hands have touched, 

 we shall declare ;" and, that the strength of evidence 

 may not be wanting, concludes by an invitation to all 



