312 



EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



of the weed on wliicli they were found m the 

 live-box. The wheel animalcule was rathe 

 obstinate, and for some time would not assume 



Vorticella microstoma, in process of encystment, 300 

 linear; in the last the inclosing tunic is plainly de- 

 veloped. — Slein. 



her well-known elongated shape, preferring 

 to keep herself in a more globular form. 

 Viewed under a Smith and Beck's two-thirds 

 object-glass (without the erector), and using 

 the three eye-pieces and draw-tube, which 

 afford a range of from 60 to 300 diameters, it 

 was easy to see the curious stomach in a 

 state of commotion, and make out portions of 

 the wonderful mechanism by which the food 

 is ground up, or, as it may be better de- 

 scribed, clawed to pieces ; and when the 

 creature chose to put out its sliding, telescope 

 tail at one end, and its so-called wheels at the 

 other, its appearance was so totally unlike 

 its previous aspect that if the changes had 

 not occurred under the eye, no one would 

 have believed it to be the same. The prin- 

 cipal points to be observed about this Eotifer 

 are the motion of the cilia, giving the appear- 

 ance of rotating wheels ; the thrusting in and 

 out both head and tail ; the use of the latter 

 for a kind of wooden-legged progression ; 

 the movements of the muscular stomach, or 

 gizzard,* which lies a little below the head, 

 and is conspicuous from its circular form 

 with what looks like a crop in it ; and the 

 presence of eggs, which occur lower down 

 on either side of the intestinal canal. 



• This organ has usually been taken for a gizzard, 

 but Mr. Gosse, in an elaborate paper, read before the 

 lioyal Society, vindicates its claims to be considered a 

 mouth. 



Many of the Eotifers are much more 

 beautiful than this, and in some the red eyes 

 are brilliant objects ; but the Botifer vulgaris 

 is an excellent representative of the family 

 to begin with, as it is universally found 

 in ponds and cisterns. Unlike most of their 

 fellow-citizens of the so-called infusorial king- 

 dom, they have been gainers by scientific in- 

 vestigation ; and while others have often been 

 degraded in the scale of being, and, in many 

 instances, reduced in rank from the animal 

 to the vegetable world, the Eotifers have been 

 elevated to the Annulata, and established as 

 first cousins of the worms. 



The Eotifers, especially the common sort, 

 are remarkable for their tenacity of life, and 

 are said to have been 

 revived, after having been 

 dried for years, by simply 

 moistening them with 

 water. In considering 

 the physiological bearings 

 of this curious property, 

 the reader should re- 

 member what Humboldt 

 tells us in his " Views of 

 Nature," that "the cro- 

 codile in the Llanos of 

 Venezuela, the land and 

 water tortoises of the 

 Orinoco, and the colossal 



boa, and many of the ^ 



11 • P , Kotifer vulgaris. — A, 



smaUer speciesof serpents, ^^^t^, or gizzard \ 



lie torpid and motionless B, contractile vesi- 

 in the hardened ground (^}^- — Micrographic 

 throughout the hot and N.B.— When the cilia 

 dry season of the year."* or tail part are re- 

 in the Eotifers a spe- tracted, and the body 

 ... - ^ shortened, the crea- 



ciahzation of organs and ture assumes an ob- 

 functions marks their tuse oval form. 

 rank in creation, and the gizzard, before 

 spoken of, is a most elaborate mechanism, 

 very difficult to describe; but its main 

 principle is the action of toothed hammers 

 worked by powerful muscles, which pre" 

 * "Views of Nature," Bohn's Edition, p. 243. 



