108 VIGNETTES FROM INVISIBLE LIFE. 



there are no apparent suctorial or other organs 

 to do the work. Another and another rotifer is 

 caught, and drawn as if by enchantment to the 

 volcano-like craters opening to receive them. I 

 have seen as many as five or six at once thus 

 absorbed, causing utter disfigurement to the body 

 of Acti/iophrys. There is not always a struggle, 

 and as the finely drawn-out extremities of the 

 tentacles are not visible, there is something terrible 

 in this apparent fascination, as one after another 

 of these beautiful creatures the rotifers slowly 

 wend their way to inevitable destruction. 



The Actinopltrys extemporizes a mouth just 

 as the Amoeba wherever it needs one, at the sur- 

 face of its body, and where the expanded rayed-out 

 parts of its own substance happen to have come 

 in contact with a possible victim. Its body is 

 composed of granular protoplasm having cells or 

 vacuoles, which act as so many stomachs in absorbing 

 and digesting (each one on its own account) the 

 food with which it is brought in contact, and reject 

 waste products at any convenient point. Near the 

 surface of the outer zone are seen generally two 

 contractile vesicles i.e., sack-like projections of 



