15 
by burying themselves in the mud, although when it becomes per- 
fectly dry they perish. The eggs, however, maintain their vitality, 
and hatch out in four or five days after being placed in water. 
The specimens of the Weald Clay, were obtained from the 
quarry, about the Seabrook Hotel, on the right hand side of the 
road leading from Folkestone to Hythe. 
Colonel Horsley exhibited under his microscope the remains of 
Cypris found in the vesicles of the Utricularia neglecta, and Mr. 
G. H. Nelson specimens of Purbeck limestone showing numerous 
remains of cyprides. 
EY, 
STEPHANOCEROS EICHORNII, 
BY 
MR. T. B. ROSSETER, F.R.M.S. 
Read May, 1883. 
Old Naturalists thought, many of the present day think, in 
fact there are some distinguished Naturalists who maintain, that 
the cell of Stephanoceros Eichornii is a solid gelatinous mass. 
I imagine that the reason which led the old investigators of this 
interesting creature to come to such conclusions, was the fact of the 
dragging down of a portion of the cell when the creature retreated 
into it, which made them suppose that the cell was attached to the 
shoulders of the creature by an integument, and that the cell was 
contractile. 
Their observations were doubtless further confirmed by the 
fact that the creature does not follow the general rule of tube- 
bearing Rotifers, and leave the cell previous to death, but dies and 
undergoes decomposition in its cell. 
The dragging down of the cell by the tentacles, is caused by 
their impinging on the sides of the circular aperture, or orifice of 
the cell, this being, in every case I have examined, much smaller 
in comparison than the other portion of the cell. It is true the 
eurved portion of the cell which comes down, seems to cover the 
shoulders of the creature, but this it does not do; but comes round 
and forms the top of the cell when the creature invaginates itself 
either from agitation, or in the act of gulping its food; the 
tentacles as I have said before, impinge on the sides of the cell ; 
now when the creature returns, this portion that is really dragged 
down is pushed out at the end of the tentacles, and, when viewed 
with dark ground illumination, one is able to see what I mean. 
It is not only by tha return of the creature to seek for food that 
