Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/108

 to be found accounts of not a few wonderful things in the way of zoölogical curiosities—tells us that in a certain "contre and be all yonde, ben great plenty of Crokodilles, that is, a manner of a long Serpent as I have seyd before." He further remarks that "these Serpents slew men," and devoured them, weeping; and he tells us, too, that "whan thei eaten thei meven (move) the over jowe (upper jaw), and nought the nether (lower) jowe: and thei have no tonge (tongue)." Sir John thus states two popular beliefs of his time and of days prior to his age, namely, that crocodiles moved their upper jaws, and that a tongue was absent in these animals.

As regards the tears of the crocodiles, no foundation of fact exists for the belief in such sympathetic exhibitions. But a highly probable explanation may be given of the manner in which such a belief originated. These reptiles unquestionably emit very loud and singularly plaintive cries, compared by some travelers to the mournful howling of dogs. The earlier and credulous travelers would very naturally associate tears with these cries, and, once begun, the supposition would be readily propagated, for error and myth are ever plants of quick growth. The belief in the movement of the upper jaw rests on an 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; while, 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 drift-wood of the sea-beach, or who has seen ships docked in a seaport town. A barnacle is simply a kind of crab inclosed 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 among the most familiar denizens of our seacoasts. These latter are the "sea-acorns" or Balani, whose little conical shells we crush by hundreds as we walk over the rocks at low-water mark; while every wooden pile immersed in the sea becomes coated in a short time with a thick crust of these "sea-acorns." If we place one of these little animals, barnacle or acorn—the latter wanting the stalk of the former