194 THE JfATURAL HISTOllY REVIEW. 



in his ' Notes ou some points in tlie Anatomy of Rotatoria,^ refer- 

 ring chiefly to the water-vascnlar apparatus, alimentary canal and 

 ' feelers,' or supposed organs of sense, in these animals. 



Limnias is here said to possess a water- vascular system agreeing 

 with that of Botifers in general. A similar system exists also in 

 Floscularia, but its " vessels" are very small in diameter " when com- 

 " pared with the bulk of the creature's body." There is no other 

 circulatory apparatus, albeit that Mr. Gosse has described such, 

 apart from the general cavity of the body. Dr. Moxon has seen 

 ciliated appendages of the usual kind in connection with the lateral 

 vessels of Pterodlna, in Avhich genus they could not be detected by 

 Leydig. The true structure of these organs, ' tags' or ' cilium- 

 funnels,' is still an open question. By careful observation of 

 Euchlanis dilatata in several distinct aspects Dr. Moxon shows that 

 the ' candle-flame like appearance' which the tags often exhibit is 

 not due to the presence of a single long ' flickering ciHum,' as many 

 have supposed, but of numerous short cilia, clothing the (inner) 

 surface of the tag. " Whether [he adds] this is a triangular flattened 

 " ampulla, or whether the tube opens, and one side of its orifice is 

 " produced and expanded into the triangle, so that the latter is a 

 " single plane, I cannot make out ; but I believe the cilia must be on 

 " two opposed surfaces." In support of this last conclusion the author 

 further states, " that an identical appearance of flickering cilia is pro- 

 " duced by the same conditions in the tube-valve of the crop of Flos- 

 " cularia,'' a characteristic structure, which he describes as " a thin- 

 *' walled, flattened, cilium-lined lube," wa^dng loosely about in the 

 manducatory cavity, or crop, with the pharyngeal margin of which its 

 attached edges are continuous. " This tube-valve has often been seen 

 " by describers, but its nature has been entirely mistaken ; it has been 

 " viewed as a ' sht-like opening fringed with vibratile cilia' [Dobie], 

 " as ' many plates or filaments' [Dujardin], as two delicate mem- 

 "branes [Huxley], and as a stream of water trickling into the 

 " gizzard." In three instances the author has seen the tube com- 

 pletely everted along with the anterior third of the alimentary 

 canal of the Floscularia. The cilia were plainly observed to vibrate on 

 the surface of what thus became the tube's exterior. " I have thus," 

 he concludes, " fully described this structure, as I believe the em- 

 " ployment of a long, lax, ciliated tube as an intestinal valve is not on 

 " record." The ' feelers,' or tactile organs, of the Itotifers are either 



