72 Marvels of Pond-Life. 



shallow glass cell, covered up as before described. By 

 occasionally changing the water one may be kept for 

 days in the same cell, and will reward the pains by fre- 

 quently exposing its flower-like head. Usually the 

 horns or feelers come out first, and then a lump of flesh. 

 After this, if all seems right, the wheels appear, and 

 make a fine whirlpool, as may be readily seen by the 

 use of a little indigo or carmine. 



The Melicerta is, however, an awkward object to 

 undertake to show to our friends, for as they knock at 

 the door she is apt to turn sulky, and when once in this 

 mood it is impossible to say when her fair form will 

 reappear. At times the head is wagged about in all 

 directions with considerable vehemence, playing singu- 

 lar antics, and distorting her lobes so as to exhibit a 

 Punch and Judy profile. When these creatures die 

 they leave their tubes, which are often found empty in 

 the ponds they frequent. The Melicertas are con- 

 veniently viewed with a power of from sixty to one 

 hundred linear, and a colony of them may be kept alive 

 for some weeks in a glass jar or tank. 



Among the remainder of my tiny captives were two 

 beautiful members of the Vorticella family, Epistylis 

 and Carchesium. The reader will remember that in 

 the Vorticella previously described, the bells stood upon 

 stalks that were very flexible, and retractile by means 

 of a muscle running down their length. The Epistylis 

 is, as its name imports, the dweller on a pillar. The 

 stem is stiff, or only slightly flexible, and has no appa- 

 ratus by which it can be drawn down. The specimen 

 mentioned stood, like a palm-tree, and the large oval 



