( 1' ) 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



Note on Vorticella. — One evening watching an Actinophrys 

 Sol procvmng his supper^ more suo, my attention was attracted 

 to an object in another part of the field also feeding, hnt in a 

 manner never before observed by me. 



This was a common Vorticella [NebuUfera] feasting on a 

 large jelly-like mass which much resembled the body of an 

 Amoeba. Instead of the ordinary, apparently rotatory, vortex- 

 creating movements of the cilise, whereby food is usually 

 brought to the oesophagus, ciliee were seen protruded from 

 within the oral apertiu'c and applied, as ive would our finger 

 and thumb, in picking out from the gelatinous mass the oOy- 

 looking particles with which it was studded. After appro- 

 priating several of these, the creature would suddenly retreat, 

 by the contraction of its pedicle, beneath a leaf of duckweed, 

 from which, in a few seconds, it would emerge, again to renew 

 its feast. 



I continued to watch this proceeding until I had seen it 

 repeated a great number of times ; and I distinctly noticed 

 that, as the highly refi'acting particles disappeared from the 

 gelatinous mass, the body of the Vorticella appeared to become 

 more and more charged with them. 



Dr. Carpenter, in his recent work on the microscope, 

 observes — " There is no reason whatever to believe that these 

 animalcides {Vorticella) possess any organs of special sense." 

 And again, " If they are really endowed with consciousness, 

 as their movements seejn to indicate, though other considera- 

 tions render it very doubtful, they must derive their percep- 

 tions of external things fi'om the impressions made upon their 

 general surface, but more particularly upon their filamentous 

 appendages." 



I would merely remark that it is difficult for an ordinary 

 understanding to dissociate the phenomenon here recorded, of 

 this humljle Vorticella selecting its food from corresponding 

 actions in beings possessed of undoubted " consciousness " — 

 difficult not to regard this diminutive creature, selecting its 

 dainty morsels, even as a type of our own humanity. — 

 H. Wilson, Runcorn. 



VOL. V. c 



