The cliones are real lodgers which lead us to the Saxicavæ, the Pholades, and the Teredines; they seek their lodging in rocks or in wood; these lead directly to the sea-urchins, which also hollow out lodgings in rocks, but without penetrating deeply. Professor Allman has just observed a very remarkable case of commensalism between a sponge and one of the tubulariæ. The crown of the tubularia is extended at the entrance of the canals of the sponge; and the association is so complete, that the Edinburgh professor imagined that he had before his eyes a true sponge with the arms of a tubularia.
In the lowest ranks of the animal scale, there are certain kinds of animalcules, which establish themselves on the bodies of obliging neighbours, and take advantage of their fins in order to swim at their expense. Thus we often find the bodies of certain crustaceans covered with a forest of vorticellæ and other infusoria. They cause themselves to be towed like cirrhipedes, but they do not change their toilet like them, so that it cannot be said that they put on the livery of servitude.
The kind of life led by several of these animalculæ is as yet little known.
Mons. Leydig has found in the stomach of the Hydatina Senta a messmate which much resembles an Euglena, and still more the Distigma tenax, Ehr.
[1] I owe this observation to Dr. W. S. Kent, who showed me, in London, anodonts attached in this manner to sticklebacks.
CHAPTER III.
FIXED MESSMATES.
The animals of which we have just spoken usually preserve their full and entire independence; from the time of their leaving the egg, till their complete development, they are subject to no other outward changes than such as belong to their class. If they sometimes renounce their liberty, it is only for a limited time; and they all preserve not only their peculiar appearance, but their organs intended for fishing or for locomotion. It is not thus with those which we are now about to consider; they are free in their youth, but as they draw near to puberty they make choice of a host, instal themselves within him, and completely lose their former appearance: not only do they throw aside their oars and their pincers, but they cease sometimes to keep up any communication with the outer world, and even give up the most precious organs of animal life, not even excepting those of the senses; they are installed for life, and their fate is bound up with the host which gives them shelter. The number of these messmates is considerable.
We shall first allude to some crustaceans named Cirrhipedes by Lamarck. The metamorphoses which they have undergone since they left the egg have so