MICROCODID.E; ASPLANCHNAD.E. 11!) 



ventral surface. Dr. Greuacher says that there is no separation between the sto:nacli and 

 intestine, but this Mr. Gosse has distinctly seen. The latter says : " When I first detected 

 the animal, the intestine occupying the gibbous swelhng of the hind abdomen was clear, 

 save for a considerable well-defined mass of orange-red ; but, on resuming my observa- 

 tions on it an hour or so later, the intestine was not distinguishable from the stomach, 

 the whole beuig of a deep rich sienna-brown, with oil-globules of various sizes scattered 

 throughout it." The ovary appears to be divided into two distinct portions, and a clear 

 reddish spot, somewhat like an oil-globule, but of unknown function, lies between the 

 stomach and ovary. A contractile vesicle is conspicuous above the foot, and Dr. 

 Greuacher notices his having seen indistinctly the lateral canals, but not any vibratile 

 tags. There are two spherical gastric glands, and just above these, at the head of the 

 mastax, is a round nervous ganglion, on which is seated a splendid eye. It is a purple 

 ball, resting on purple plates curving romid the gangUon, so as to give the whole a 

 curious likeness to a jockey's cap (fig. lb). Two of these stripes appeared to have been 

 displaced in my specimen, but I cannot tell if this was an accident or if their position 

 is normal. I could only make out these details by flooding the animal with transmitted 

 light. There are a dorsal and two lateral autennre, aU mere setigerous warts ; and the 

 foot bears just above the toe on the dorsal side three bristles, which Dr. Greuacher says 

 are erectile. The same observer has noticed that the longitudinal muscles which move 

 the foot, and are continued do-wn into it from the body, are all striated. The foot is 

 di\-ided into three joints, of which the first and last are small, and it ends in a single 

 toe. It is freely moved from one side to the other, round its basal jouit, and is some- 

 times laid flat to the ventral surface. 



The Male. — [A female had been playing m my live-box within an area formed by 

 bounding filaments of MyrioplnjUum. Presently I saw a slender worm, about as long 

 as this charming subject itself, of almost aerial transparency, very slender, darting about 

 the same lunited area. It was a nearly perfect cyUnder, but gradually tapering to an 

 acute extremity, which may possibly have been a minute conical toe. The front, shghtly 

 bent do-n-Qward, was transversely truncate ; its circular margin carrying a wreath of 

 locomotive cilia, by whose vibrations it shot vigorously and rapidly about. The whole 

 body was refi-active of light, but one vesicle, situate about two-thirds from the fi'ont was 

 more intensely refractive. This I suspect to have been the sperm-sac. I could detect 

 no other organ or viscus in the animal, but the entu'e length and breadth was full of 

 minute granules. My grounds for suggesting that this was the male Microcodon are but 

 inferential. Fhst, the motions were exactly imitative of those which I had just been 

 watching in the female — swift glidings hither and thither, occasionally varied with 

 moments of sudden pausing, and again with still more sudden and invisibly rapid starts 

 and springs to a distance. Secondly, its appearance at the same time, in the same dip, 

 and in the same limited area with the female, which itself is a rarely occurrmg species 

 v\-ith me : and thirdly, the apparent attentions wliich the supposed male paid to the 

 female, every now and then coming close to her in his devious travels, though only to 

 shoot by her. The area was quite open at one end ; yet for a long time, and not till 

 after many sailings to and fro, did he assert his freedom, when she presently followed. — 

 P.H.G.] 



Length. From -j4t^ to -j-^ inch, of which the foot is more than half. Habitat. 

 Sandhurst (Dr. Colhns, P.H.G.) ; Woolston Pond, Hants (Miss Danes, P.H.G.). 



Family YI. ASPLAXCHNAD.E. 



Corona sub-conical, u'ith one or two apices ; ciliary wreath si7igle, edging the corona; 

 intestiae and cloaca absent. 



The Asplanchnadcs, though singularly beautiful Eotifera, are yet of a low type of 

 structiu-e, lur iheir stomach is a blmd sac, and they reject all fscal mutter through 



