30 VIGNETTES FUOM INVISIBLE LIFE. 



or pellets, Limnias constructs its house with thick 

 gelatine of rather a horny consistency ; and being 

 at first soft, it forms good material for the attach- 

 ment of foreign bodies and the young ones who 

 may chance to light upon it ; for these, like the 

 young Melicertans, are at first free-swimming, and 

 have two eyes, which they appear to have lost on 

 arriving at maturity and a fixed abode. 



The wheel-like organ consists of two nearly 

 circular lobes, or lips, fringed with cilia, showing 

 all the appearance of rotation as each wave of cilia 

 follows its fellow round the course, thus producing 

 a picture of great beauty to the beholder. This 

 ciliary motion, or some modification of it, is almost 

 universal in all microscopic animals as it is also in 

 some of the tissues of the higher forms of life 

 and is the method by which nourishment is col- 

 lected, and in some cases locomotion achieved. We 

 see then, the food collected by the ciliated flower- 

 like lips, and passing between them, down the 

 buccal funnel, through the aesophagus, or gullet, 

 to the manducatory bulb, or mastax ; which latter 

 consists of jaws furnished with strong teeth, work- 

 ing on each other, tearing and grinding the smaller 



