OR, PLAIN 



two long filaments or tentacula, 

 from which spring smaller fila- 

 ments spirally coiled like the 

 tendrils of a pea. It might be 

 inferred, from the extreme deli- 

 cacy of their structure, that jelly 

 fishes are supported only on food 

 most easily obtained ; but this is 

 by no means the case, for small 

 Crustacea, mollusca, and even 

 fishes, are frequently found in 

 their stomachs. 



The extremely small amount of solid matter 

 which enters into the composition of the bodies 

 of these animals, renders their organization all 

 the more wonderful. On one occasion a dead 

 cydippe was placed upon a piece of glass, and 

 exposed to the sun. As the moisture evaporated , 

 the different parts appeared as if confusedly 

 painted upon the glass ; and when it had become 

 perfectly dry, a touch removed the only vestiges 

 of what had been so lately a graceful and 

 animated being. 



Barnacles, 5, are often to be 

 found upon the sea-shore, drifted 



U72. 



thither upon the wood of a 

 wrecked ship, or other floating 

 body. We have seen a ship's 

 mast, which had long driven 

 about at sea, literally covered 



teaching. 355 



with them. They are often 

 found clinging in great numbers 

 to the bottoms of ships, greatly 

 retarding their speed. They 

 grow, or live in clusters, each 

 barnacle consisting of a mem- 

 branaceous branch or arm, which 

 is fixed to some body, the animal 

 being invested with compressed 

 shells, attached to the pedicel. 

 The larger barnacles cluster with 

 the smaller in the same group, 

 and form bunches of various 

 sizes. They are furnished with 

 many tentacula, with which they 

 gather their food. These ten- 

 tacula are much like feathers, 

 when they protrude from the 

 shells ; and in the olden time the 

 resemblance of the barnacle to a 

 young bird escaping from an egg 

 gave rise to the belief that a cer- 

 tain kind of goose grew upon 

 a particular description of water 

 plant. This singular opinion is 

 thus recorded by a very old 

 writer, who testifies to its truth : 



" What our eyes have seene, and hands have 

 touched, we shall declare. There is a small 

 island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, 

 wherein are found the broken pieces of old and 

 bruised ships, some whereof have been cast 

 thither by shipwrake, and also the trunks and 

 branches of old and rotten trees, cast up there 

 likewise ; whereon is found a certain spume, or 

 froth, that in time breedeth unto certaine shels, 

 in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper 

 pointed, and of a whitish colour, wherein is con- 

 tained a thing in form like a lace of silke, finely 

 woven as it were together, of a whitish colour ; 

 one end whereof is fastened into the inside of 

 the shell, even as the fish of oisters and muskles 

 are ; the other end is made fast unto the belly 

 of a rude masse, or lumpe, which in time 

 commeth to the shape and form of a bird. When 

 it is perfectly formed, the shell gapeth open, and 

 the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid laee 

 or string ; next come the legs of the bird, hang- 

 ing out, and as it growetli greater it openeth 

 the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come 

 forth, and hangeth only by the bill ; in short 

 space after it cometli to full maturitie, and 

 falleth into the sea ; where it gathereth feathers, 

 and growetli to fowle bigger than a mallard, and 

 lesser than a goose, having blacke legs, and bill 

 or beak, and feathers blacke and white, spotted 

 in such manner as is our magpie, called in some 



