belief in the movement of the upper jaw rests on apparent basis of fact.  The lower jaw is joined to the skull very far back on the latter, and the mouth-opening thus comes to be singularly wide; whilst, when the mouth opens, the skull and upper jaw are apparently observed to move.  This is not the case, however; the apparent movement arising from the manner in which the lower jaw and the skull are joined together.  The belief in the absence of the tongue is even more readily explained.  When the mouth is widely opened, no tongue is to be seen.  This organ is not only present, but is, moreover, of large size; it is, however, firmly attached to the floor of the mouth, and is specially adapted, from its peculiar form and structure, to assist these animals in the capture and swallowing of their prey.

One of the most curious fables regarding animals which can well be mentioned, is that respecting the so-called “Bernicle” or “Barnacle Geese,” which by the naturalists and educated persons of the Middle Ages were believed to be produced by those little Crustaceans named “Barnacles.”  With the “Barnacles” every one must be familiar who has examined the floating driftwood of the sea-beach, or who has seen ships docked in a seaport town.  A barnacle is simply a kind of crab enclosed in a triangular shell, and attached by a fleshy stalk to fixed objects.  If the barnacle is not familiar to readers, certain near relations of these animals must be well known, by sight at least, as amongst the most familiar denizens of our sea-coast.  These latter are the “Sea-Acorn,” or Balani, whose little conical shells we crush by hundreds as we walk over the rocks at low-water mark; whilst every wooden pile immersed in the sea becomes coated in a short time with a thick crust of the “Sea-Acorns.”  If we place one of these little animals, barnacle, or sea-acorn—­the latter wanting the stalk of the former—­in its native waters, we shall observe a beautiful little series of feathery plumes to wave backward and forward, and ever and anon to be quickly withdrawn into the secure recesses of the shell.  These organs are the modified feet of the animal, which not only serve for sweeping food-particles into the mouth, but act also as breathing-organs.  We may, therefore, find it a curious study to inquire through what extraordinary transformation and confusion of ideas such an animal could be credited with giving origin to a veritable goose; and the investigation of the subject will also afford a singularly apt illustration of the ready manner in which the fable of one year or period becomes transmitted and transformed into the secure and firm belief of the next.