8 THE ROTIFERA. 
tion as the head emerges. The animal has no power of springing by means of the 
spines, or of using them in any appreciable manner. The hind spine is similar, and 
similarly set in a deep sulcus of the lower belly. All are dilated at their bases. 
At the very front are two minute but distinct red eyes, side by side, seated on a small 
brain-mass, which tapers into a thread that passes to the occiput, probably to an antenna, 
not detected. The mastax was obscure, but seemed of the Bdelloid pattern. A very 
slender but long esophagus leads to a vast sacculate alimentary canal, and this to a 
cloaca at the very point of the body, behind the spine; which hence, Herr Grenacher’s 
judgment notwithstanding, I conclude to represent the foot. A momentary action, like 
that of a contractile vesicle, I perceived, but could not define one; and lateral canals 
run down each side. Several muscles are discernible. 
The animal is vivacious, swimming freely and swiftly; I did not see it attempt to 
spring, nor to crawl; the foot-spine was not whisked about. I first met with the species 
in a pond in Holly Walk, Leamington, in July 1850; and again lately in water from 
Keeper’s Pool, Birmingham, sent me by Mr. Bolton.—P.H.G.] 
Length, 1, to y}, inch. Habitat. Warwickshire pools: rare (P.H.G.). 
Genus PEDETES, Gosse. 
(GEN. CH. Body ovate, tailed ; toes absent ; eyes two frontal; two leaping styles 
articulated to the breast. 
P. sauTAaToR, Gosse, sp. nov. 
(Pl. XIII. fig. 10.) 
SP. CH. Leaping styles thrice the length of the body. 
This genus has a very close relation to Triarthra. It may, indeed, be described 
as a Triarthra with the posterior style wanting. The body, though apparently soft 
and flexible, must be considered as enveloped in a lorica, since the knobs to which the 
styles are articulated, are hard, immoveable, and doubtless chitinous. Its form, viewed 
dorsally, is ovate, obtusely pointed behind and broadly truncate in front. Viewed 
laterally (fig. 10a), it is flat on the ventral, and strongly arched on the dorsal surface. 
The dorsum rises to a marked conical elevation which is a true tail, for the cloaca opens 
between it and the foot. The latter (or what represents it) is a small ovate terminal 
member, within which, close to the tip, is a minute vesicle, possibly the contractile 
bladder. The rotatory cilia are seated on a number of small projecting eminences, with 
which the front is beset. On each side of what for convenience sake we call the breast, 
but rather high up, is a large round shelly knob, apparently hard and immoyeable. 
Dr. Hudson (‘‘ M. M. J.’’) long ago explained the action of the pectoral styles in the 
parallel case of Triarthra (see T. longiseta, p. 6). We may conclude the mechanism 
to be the same in both cases; but I am inclined certainly to see more than mere 
mechanical action in these shelly knobs, viz. special muscles for the forcible and definite 
motion of the styles, by means of a true (perhaps ball and socket) joint. Each style is 
a highly elastie rod, thick at its origin and for a considerable distance, then gradually 
tapering to a great attenuation, about thrice as long as the body. On the tips of these, 
which must therefore possess remarkable firmness, the animal, now and then, suddenly 
jerks itself away, as on a leaping-pole, with great force; so that they are in an instant 
seen stretching out at a right angle, or even more, forward. These leaping-poles are 
composed of transparent refractive material (chitine), resembling glass in appearance. 
The brain has not been defined; but two eyes, of a translucent red hue, near together, 
are conspicuous at the very front. ‘The mastax, far down in the body, with vigorously 
working mallei, was visible near the middle; and below this a great globose, sac-like 
alimentary canal, without visible division. The only specimen I have seen occurred in 
