9J^ MARA^ELS OF POND-LIFE. 



sticking out behind, (the Euchlanis triquetra,) also 

 served to occupy attention ; hut a further search 

 among the niyriophyllum revealed more treasures 

 of the tube-dwelling kind. These were specimens 

 of that highly curious Kotifer, the Melicerta ringens^ 

 who, not content with dwelling, like the Floscules, 

 in a gelatinous bottle, is at once brick-maker, 

 mason, and architect, and fabricates as pretty a 

 tower as it is easy to conceive. The creature 

 itself stands upon a retractile foot-stalk, and thrusts 

 out above its battlements a large head, with four 

 leaf-like expansions surrounded by cilia. Between 

 the lower lobes, or leaves, the gizzard is seen 

 grinding away, and above it is an organ, not 

 always displayed, and of which Mr. Gosse was for- 

 tunate enough to discover the use. This eminent 

 naturalist likens it to the circular ventilator some- 

 times inserted in windows, and he found it was 

 the machine for making the yellow ornamental bricks 

 of which the tower is composed. Pellet by pellet, 

 or brick by brick, does the Melicerta build her 

 house, which widens gradually from the foundation 

 to the summit, and every layer is placed with ad- 

 mirable regularity. 



In order to obtain the materials for her brick- 

 making the Melicerta must have tlie power of 

 niodifying the direction of the ciliary currents, so 

 as to throw a stream of small particles into the 



