NOTOMMATADE. 17 
rotatory organs to be wanting. Yet, lately I saw one on whose front a strong ciliary 
action was conspicuous : it seemed as if the ciliate surface were on the prone side of the 
front. The species, moreover, is furnished with protrusile auricles for augmented loco- 
motion, like Notommata proper. [have not myself seen these, indeed ; but the fact rests 
on ample evidence. Dr. Hudson was assured by Mr. Brayley, the Secretary of the Bristol 
Microscopical Society, that he had seen a Vaphrocampa ‘‘ put out very small auricles 
- from the head, and swim with a slight vermiform moyement.’’ He had made a pen-and- 
ink sketch of the creature in both conditions ; which sketch is in my possession, and 
represents indubitably 7. annulosa. Miss Saunders, too, a careful observer, writes me 
under date of June 10: ‘*‘ Watching your Taphrocampa annulosa a long time, I saw it 
thrust out an ear-like lobe on each side, and swim frantically about in a most headlong 
fashion ; but only one of three did this. The processes were not very prominent, but 
were quite distinct.” This fact affords an interesting link with the present family. 
The form of the mastax and trophi, too, though not yet quite satisfactorily defined, 
is evidently Notommatous, and seems to resemble the pattern seen in some of the Fwr- 
cularig, and some of the Rattulide also, consisting of an incus with a long fulcrum and 
a pair of long incurved mallei. The animal can bring the tips of the jaws to the very 
front, and nibbles floccose matters with them. An alimentary canal, broad and straight, 
with no accessory glands, and with no constriction, runs through the cavity to the cloaca 
close to the forked toes. Itis usually empty and colourless. At the occiput, behind the 
mastax, and almost invariably sharing its motions in contraction and elongation, is a 
moderate-sized mass of opaque matter, white by reflected light, and probably chalky. 
Like a similar mass in many Notommate, with which it is another link, it lies at the 
bottom of a wide and deep sac. I had vainly searched for any trace of red pigment in 
this mass which might indicate an eye. On one occasion recently, however, I was 
examining a specimen under direct sun-light, when there suddenly flashed out from the 
Opaque mass a spark of radiance, as if from an eye-lens, though I could not discern any 
red hue. What represents the ordinary foot and toes is peculiar. It would seem rather 
to be a forked tail; for I have seen, now and then, projecting beneath this, a very 
delicate rounded lobe, which is possibly the foot, the cloaca opening between these. Or, 
rather, it is the optical expression of the lower half of the cylindrical rectum, of which 
the middle of the crescentic fork forms the upper part or ceiling. The intestine can be 
traced down to this orifice beneath the fork. The fork, or, if this explanation is correct, 
the tail, is formed of two incurved taper, chitinous, clear, sharp spines, together making 
a semicircle; but not separated into toes, nor articulated with the segment that carries 
them, and so having no power of motion independent of one another, or of their 
segment. True toes would have both. 
The animal contracts strongly and continually, like a Notommata; but the sphere of 
the contraction is the space occupied by the alimentary canal, the parts both before and 
behind this viscus remaining unaffected, while the parts included contract forcibly, and 
both ways, but chiefly from behind forward. In most of its movements it resembles 
Chetonotus, crawling sluggishly about the glass, and the masses of sediment.!—P.H.G.| 
Length. About ;!, inch. Habitat. Pools and ditches: common (P.H.G.). 
! There are two very distinct varieties of the above, well-marked and constant; yet with hardly 
sufficient dissimilarity to warrant our separating them as species. The one smaller, with the articula- 
tion strong, the lateral projections of dark tissue into each segment clearly seen, the caudal points 
short, stout, and straight. This was the form first recognized, is the form above described, and is by 
far the more common. The other much larger, the articulation and the interior projections both in- 
distinct, often imperceptible; the caudal points long, slender, crescentic, wider at their bases, and 
making together a regular semicircle. In this variety, an excellent observation which I obtained 
showed the mastazx, mallei, and incus, almost exactly of the same familiar pattern as in Notommata 
aurita (Phil. Trans. 1856, pl. xvi. figs. 16-21). 
VOL. I. re} 
