^'ay'l Searle, The Pond and its luhabttauts. ii 



1917 J 



are small and cylindrical in shape, and in about eight days the 

 young larvae are hatched. 



The larvae are long and narrow, provided with a strong pair 

 of jaws, and three pairs of legs of equal length; the other nine 

 segments 01 the body are provided with branchial processes, or 

 gills, well supplied with air tubes, which connect with tracheae 

 that pass right along the body. Though the larvae must be 

 very numerous in our ponds, they are not often observed ; being 

 long and thin, and whitish in colour, they easily escape notice. 

 I do not remember ever taking a whirligig larva in a pond, 

 though on rare occasions I have captured them on the long 

 ribbon-like leaves of the Triglocliin, floating at the surface on 

 the River Yarra. 



When mature the larva leaves the water, and, selecting a safe 

 resting-place on some water plant, several inches above the 

 water, it spins a cocoon in which it pupates, and from which, 

 in due course, the pertect beetle is hatched. Fully 300 species 

 are known ; they are generally distributed, though wanting in 

 most of the islands of the world, except those of large size. 



Description of Plate. 

 Plate I. — i, Moina australiensis ; 2, Pseudomoina lemnae ; 3, Chydorus 

 globosus ; 4, Ilyocryptus sordidus ; 5, Simocephalus gibbosus ; 6, Sim- 

 ocephalus acutirostratus ; 7, Camptocercus, sp. ; 8, Alona pulchella ; 

 9, Scapholeberis kingi ; 10, Daphnia carinata, forma typica ; 11, Daphnia 

 carinata, var. cephalata ; 12, Daphnia carinata, var. lamellata; 13, 

 resting eggs of D. carinata; 14, Ceriodaphnia, sp. ; 15, Bosmina, sp. 



[To he continued.) 



CHILDREN'S ROOM IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, 

 MELBOURNE. 



On Tuesday, 8th May, in the presence of His Excellency the 

 Governor and Lady Stanley, tlie first Children's Room in 

 connection with a National Museum in Australia was opened by 

 Miss Adelaide Stanley. The very first Children's Room of this 

 kind was organized about the year 1900 by Dr. S. P. Langley, 

 the distinguished secretary of the great Smithsonian Institution. 

 Speaking on behalf of the children, and as one of them, he said : — 

 *• I should say that we have never had a fair chance in museums. 

 We cannot see the things on the top shelves, which only grown- 

 up people are tall enough to look into, and most of the things 

 that we can see and would like to know about have Latin words 

 on them which we cannot understand. Some things we do not 

 care for at all, and other things which look entertaining have 

 nothing on them to tell us what they arc about." He goes on 

 to say : — " I entirely agree with my small friends so far, but I will 

 add something that they only dimly understand, and that some 

 of their instructors do not understand at all. It is that to 

 interest the young minds in such things is to lay the foundation 

 for more serious study in after life." 



