92 VIGNETTES FROM INVISIBLE LIFE. 



considerable difficulty has been experienced by 

 the classifiers as to where they should place this 

 queer little fellow in the animal kingdom. He 

 has been bandied about very considerably, and 

 for a time found a resting-place among the 

 Kotifers. In some respects this was natural ; for 

 he is generally found living along with the 

 common Rotifer (R. vulyaris], is about the same 

 size (l-20th of an inch), has like it a shining trans- 

 parent outer garment or skin, and like it is subject 

 to and is capable of sustaining all the trials of dry- 

 ing, &c., to which we have adverted. But it is 

 not a Eotifer after all ; and having tried to fit him 

 into some other places without success, the syste- 

 matists have at length, as if in sheer despair, thrust 

 him among the spiders. There is, however, no 

 satisfaction in this arrangement; and while some 

 think he should lie here and another there, others 

 regard him as an anomaly, or a link between other 

 and better-known and more definite organisms 

 say between the Arachnoida and the Annclides, or 

 the Rotatoria and the Belmiiithidte. 



Taken all in all, the little Water-bear is about 

 the most self-sustaining and independent animal in 



