44 JOURNAL OF THE [April, 



with many microscopists of large experience, and after consider- 

 able correspondence, I fail to find any record of these specific 

 forms. I am, therefore, driven to the conclusion that they are 

 new to this country, and probably new to science, and the plea- 

 surable duty of introducing them devolves on me. 



Should the publication of this paper, however, lead to their 

 identification, I shall be glad to receive any communication on 

 the subject, and shall even then have the satisfaction of rescu- 

 ing from partial oblivion forms which ought not to remain irk 

 obscurity. 



One of the gentlemen whose counsel I sought was Dr. A. C. 

 Stokes, of Trenton, N. J., editor of The Microscope, and a cor- 

 responding member of this Society. He very courteously replied 

 that all except No. 5 were new to him, and that he thought, from 

 my drawing, was Cordylophora lacustris; and if not, then it was an 

 allied species. 



I have since had considerable correspondence with him, and, 

 although personally a stranger, he has evinced intense interest in 

 my finds ; and whilst he is a very busy man, I hope to have the 

 advantage of his critical experience in the preparation of the more 

 technical descriptions of these forms, which I propose to prepare 

 during the remaining winter months. 



As to the names which I have attached to four of the five forms, 

 I wish explicitly to state that they are provisional only, and are 

 given pending the settlement of the question whether they are 

 new or only rare species. 



The remaining form, though unquestionably a molluscan, differs 

 so widely from hitherto described forms that it seems to demand 

 a niche for itself. I therefore await results, and shall, whilst 

 endeavoring to complete my observations, in the meantime des- 

 ignate it as No. I. 



On my first introduction to it, all I saw were two processes, 

 standing out from confervoid and other growth, on the stem of a 

 plant I was examining for other objects. A current was being 

 produced as powerful as that of Melicerta and other large 

 Rotifera, and presently more processes, and finally an entire 

 animal crept into the field of view — an animal so unlike anything 

 I had seen before, or even remembered to have read of, that I 

 was at first amazed and then intensely interested. For its size 



