122 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



did not reveal a single specimen, and none in the 

 surrounding pools or the neighbouring ponds. About 

 midsummer is its most flourishing period, afterwards 

 diminishing, until with the autumn it disappears. 

 In form it is usually oval or elliptical in outline, at 



first entire and un- 

 broken, but soon torn, 

 on account of its fragile 

 nature, consisting of a 

 delicate network of 

 green threads, forming 

 hexagonal meshes (Fig. 

 24). The whole net 

 may be from two to six 

 inches in length, and 

 about an inch in dia- 

 meter, distended only 

 whilst floating. To 

 view them properly 

 Fig. 24.— Water Net, Hydrodktyon. they sliould be trans- 

 ferred from the pond to a glass jar, in which the 

 filmy nets will float suspended, and form most beauti- 

 ful objects, as long as they last. The size of the 

 meshes vary with age, being small when young, and 

 larger, up to a quarter of an inch, when old. Ex- 

 amined closely, the whole net will be found com- 

 posed of short slender rods or cells, equal in length 

 to one side of the mesh. At the angles the ends of 

 the cells are united, so as to form the mesh, and each 

 cell is practically a single individual, so that the 

 entire net is a colony of cells. 



These cells do not communicate with each other ; 



