COMPOSITE ANIMALS. 95 



charms of microscopic work. The jaded clerk or 

 anxious business man, half worn-out with the cares 

 and routine of city life, is here transported to fairy- 

 land, and finds his anxieties vanish in communion 

 with the wonders of nature. Putting aside for the 



FIG. 16. Pliimatella repots, with Rotifers, &c., attached. 



time the rotifers, &c., you have a colony of this 

 singularly beautiful fresh-water Polyzoon, with 

 crescent plumes of delicate, tubular, ciliated ten- 

 tacles, vibrating with life. Rapid currents are 

 formed in the surrounding water, and the nutrient 

 minute particles whirled within the plume and 

 down the gullet to the alimentary canal, where 

 you may observe the changes they undergo as 

 they are rapidly digested and assimilated for the 



