174 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



twenty-four hours, there was little left 

 in the water but the suns. I therefore 

 determined to ascertain the limit of its 



ORDINARY FORM OF SUN ANIMAL 



■Contains recently captured rotifer. The black spots 

 are stomachs containing rotifers undergoing digestion. 



voracity, but found that it absolutely had 

 no limit. 



10 make this understood, I may ex- 

 plain its method of capturing and de- 

 vouring a rotifer. 



The sun seldom moves, but it is well 



CHANGES SHAPE TO SWALLOW A 



CLOSTERIUM. 



known the rotifer is an extremely restless 



little animal, and this activity often 



proves its destruction. 



The rotifer then, rushing about, comes 

 in contact with some of the sun's rays, 

 with which it surely becomes entangled, 

 and in its struggles to escape, only be- 

 comes more and more involved, until it 

 is drawn near to the body, which then 

 opens and takes it in. 



The struggles of the rotifer, as it is 

 gradually compressed, are curious to 

 witness, its final effort to move consist- 

 ing of an attempt to rotate the cilia 

 around its mouth. 



The rotifer is now in an extemporized 

 stomach, and digestion proceeds with 

 great rapidity, any indigestible portion 

 of this, or of other food being ejected 

 from any part of the sun's body that may 

 be most convenient. 



In my attempt to ascertain the limit 



JJt/fermh /^rtnt as, w m(.i 



/Ire »V 



of the sun's ability to eat, I found some 

 water that was swarming with Parame- 

 cia, and, pouring a part of this into my 

 live-trough with the suns, F watched the 

 results under the microscope. I soon 

 found that, no matter how many I put 

 in they were rapidly captured. In one 

 of the suns I counted seventeen under- 

 going digestion. In this one, a change 

 of form took place, and it assumed an 

 elliptical shape. A constriction soon oc- 

 curred in the middle, giving it a dumb- 

 bell shape ; the connecting link was then 

 gradually drawn out, until it became sim- 

 ply one of the rays touching the point 

 of one or the other sun. These rays 

 then separated, and I had two suns about 

 as large as the original one, and both 

 eating all the time. In one case, I saw 

 a sun separate into three, instead of two. 



