132 MARVELS OF POND-LIFE. 



fusion animalcules,) and the English "Infusoria;" 

 but very little has yet been done in the way of 

 their scientific culture and management. 



To return from this digression to our little Hamp- 

 stead ponds, we obtained from one, in September, 

 that was full of star-weed, a number of sugar-loaf 

 bodies adhering to one another, and of a pale yellow 

 brown colour. The specimens first examined looked 

 complete in themselves, and were taken for eggs of 

 some water creature. Further search however dis- 

 closed aggregations of similar sugar-loaves that had 

 evidently formed part of a tubular structure, and 

 the idea at once occurred that they were fragments 

 of a Melicerta tube, a conclusion that was verified 

 by finding some tubes entire and a dead Melicerta 

 in the rubbish at the bottom. All the specimens of 

 Melicerta tubes we had hitherto examined were com- 

 posed of rounded pellets, but these were made of 

 pointed cones or sugar-loaves, with the points pro- 

 jecting outwards from the general surface. In 

 Pritchard's ''Infusoria," these pellets are described 

 '•as small lenticular bodies." The "Micrographic 

 Dictionary" states that the tubes of the Melicerta 

 are composed of "numerous rounded or discoidal 

 bodies;" and Mr. Gosse, in his ''Tenby," which con- 

 tains an admirable description, and an exquisite 

 drawing of this interesting rotifer, calls the pellets 

 *'round." 



