Paul H Barrett - The Works of Charles Darwin: Vol 12: A Monograph on the Sub-Class Cirripedia (1854), Vol II, Part 1

THE WORKS OF CHARLES DARWIN

Volume 12. The Balanidae

Part One

First published 1992 by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Darwin, Charles, 18091882

The works of Charles Darwin.

Vols. 11 20

1 . Organisms. Evolution Early works

I. Title II. Barrett, Paul H . (Paul Howard), 19171987 III. Freeman, R. B. (Richard Broke), 19151986 IV. Gautrey, Peter 575

ISBN 13: 978-1-85196-305-8 (hbk)

TO

PROFESSOR H. MILNE EDWARDS

Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of Paris; Professor at the Museum of Natural History; Member of the Institute of France; Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London, of the Academies of Berlin, Stockholm, St Petersburg, Vienna, Konigsberg, Moscow, Brussels, Haarlem, Boston, Philadelphia, etc.

THIS WORK IS DEDICATED

WITH THE MOST SINCERE RESPECT AS THE ONLY, THOUGH VERY INADEQUATE ACKNOWLEDGMENT WHICH THE AUTHOR CAN MAKE OF HIS GREAT AND CONTINUED OBLIGATIONS TO THE

AND TO THE OTHER MEMOIRS AND WORKS ON NATURAL HISTORY PUBLISHED BY

THIS ILLUSTRIOUS NATURALIST.

PREFACE

Having so lately, in my volumes on the recent and fossil Lepadidae, expressed as strongly as I could, and with the utmost sincerity, the obligations under which I lie to very many naturalists, I will not here repeat my thanks, and will only say that the assistance formerly rendered me from so many quarters has been most kindly continued without intermission. The references under the habitats, in which I may remark the names of Mr Cuming and o f Mr Stutchbury, and of the British Museum, so often recur, show my deep obligations to these gentlemen and to Dr Gray, and indeed to most of the British and several foreign1 collectors of recent and fossil shells. At the period when the Introduction to this volume was printed, I stated that I did not know whether the Palaeontographical Society would publish the few British fossil Balanidae; the / Council has now honoured me by determining on this publication, so that these species will hereafter be more fully illustrated than they could be in the present volume. I cannot conclude this short preface, without again tendering my most grateful thanks to the Council of the Ray Society for the publication of my two volumes, and for the very kind manner in which they have acceded to all my requests.

Down, Kent

1 I feel under special obligation to Mr Dana for several very interesting communications connected with the present subject, and for information derived from his magnificent work on the Crustacea, collected during the United States Exploring Expedition. Also to M. Bosquet, of Maestricht, for the loan and gift of several interesting fossils, described and illustrated with the utmost fidelity, in his beautiful Monographie des Crustaces fossiles du terrain Cretacee du D. de Limbourg.

MONOGRAPH ON THE CIRRIPEDIA

INTRODUCTION

My former volume, published by the Ray Society, treated only of the Lepadidae, one family of the Cirripedia: I was induced to print it from having the materials ready, though this partial publication has been in some respects inconvenient. The Palaeontographical Society has done me the honour to publish, with ample illustrations, the fossil species of this same family of Lepadidae. This present volume completes my work on the subclass Cirripedia.1 I had originally intended to have published a small volume on my anatomical observations; but the full abstract given in my former volume, which will be illustrated to a certain extent in the plates appended to this volume, together with the observations here given under the Balanidae, appear to me sufficient, and I am unwilling to spend more time on the subject. In the volume on the Lepadidae, I gave the specific or diagnostic characters in English and Latin: I have here left out the latter, inasmuch as I have appended at the end of this volume a Latin Synopsis of all the / species, recent and fossil, of the whole class. To each species is added a reference to the pages and plates of my three volumes, so that the Synopsis will serve as a systematic index to the three: an alphabetical index to the present volume is also given. In the Lepadidae, I gave an additional specific character, derived from the softer parts of the animals body: in the Balanidae, these parts are more alike in the different species, and I have found it impossible to give a diagnostic character thus derived. In those cases in which a family contains but one genus, or a genus but one species, I have assigned my reasons for the institution of such groups, but have given, as heretofore, only a single description in full: it would have been easy to have separated, by analogy, this description into one for the species, another for the genus or for the family; but as I believe such separation and subordination of the characters would have been largely conjectural, I have thought it best to act as I have done, and give, thus saving useless repetitions, only a single description, and leave it for my successors, when more genera or species are known, to separate, with such certainty as is ever possible, the generic from the specific characters.

In nomenclature, I have endeavoured rigorously to follow the rules of the British Association, and have never, at least intentionally, broken through the great law of priority. In accordance with the rules, I have rejected, that is, as compulsory, all names given before the introduction of the binomial system in 1758. I have given much fewer synonyms than is usual in conchological works; for it is impossible to recognize with any approach to certainty, several even of the common European forms, in the short descriptions given by most authors; this holds good in many cases in which figures, in appearance excellent, have been added. I assert this the more confidently, from having had the advantage of having gone over some of the Linnean synonyms with Mr S. Hanley. I may further venture to express my conviction, that giving references to works, in which there is not any original matter, or in which the plates are not of a high order of excellence, is absolutely injurious to the progress of Natural History.

Sessile cirripedes, partly from being attached to surfaces / having very different characters, partly from undergoing a varying amount of disintegration, and partly from unknown innate causes, are extremely variable. Under the head of