251 



THE WORK OF THE LATE SAVILLE-KENT ON BRITISH 



HYDRACHNIDS. 



By Chas. D. Soar, F.L.8., F.E.M.S. 



{Read May 2Srd, 1911.) 



Many years ago, in our old friend Science Gossip, there appeared 

 :a note asking for collections of water-mites to be sent to a 

 gentleman who intended publishing a Monograph on the 

 Hydrachnidae. This gentleman was no other than the late 

 Saville-Kent, whose work on the Infusoria is so well known to 

 all microscopists. Again, in /Science Gossip for 1882, in answer 

 to a query by a Mr. J. A. Ollard, there is a paragraph by 

 Saville-Kent, in which he says: "I long since commenced the 

 study of water-mites, and collected within the course of two 

 summers in the neighbourhood of London alone upwards of fifty 

 different varieties. I am now working at the subject again with 

 the view to a Monograph of the British species, and shall hence 

 be indebted to Mr. Ollard, or any other subscribers to Science 

 'Gossip, for new material or notices of new localities of our 

 indigenous types. For the purposes of study the water-mites or 

 -swimming mites as they may be more appropriately called, all 

 the species being especially adapted for a natatory existence, 

 through the development on their legs of long swimming-hairs - 

 may conveniently be kept in small glass bottles of one- or two- 

 ounce capacity, a bottle relegated to each species, and a small 

 fragment of water-plant such as Ranunculus or Fontinalis being 

 added for the little animals to rest and deposit their eggs upon. 

 Small Entomostraca, Daphnias, or Cyprids should be provided as 

 food every few days, the water-mites, like their congeners the 

 true spiders, being eminently predatory in their habits and 

 3-equiring a constant supply of living prey. A small label should 

 be affixed to each bottle, indicating the locality and date of 

 capture." I do not know if these requests met with any response ; 



