Miscellaneous. 437 



Zoophytes, I sent drawings of them to my friend Dr. Johnston, who 

 informed me that they represented something with which he was not 

 acquainted, and that possibly I had got a new form of Campanularian 

 Zoophyte. A more careful examination, however, of these delicate 

 little creatures, which were so minute as to be only just visible to 

 the naked eye, convinced me that their organization was much more 

 simple than is to be found in the true polypes, and that they must 

 be considered to belong to the class Infusoria. I afterwards foimd 

 both these species on SertularicB at Cullercoats. I have since met 

 with another species of these polype-like animalcules inhabiting fresh 

 water (fig. 3). It occurred in Crag Lake, on the stem of the new 

 species of Paludicella found there, and somewhat resembles the 

 smaller marine species already described, but is perfectly distinct 

 from it, as its habitat would lead us to expect. The body of this 

 lacustrine species is pear-shaped, or, perhaps, rather bell-shaped, with 

 a distinct rim round the top and a single circle of delicate capitate 

 feelers, which as in the former instances were retractile. The stem 

 was long and slender. 



The British Animalcules are very imperfectly understood, with the 

 exception of the beautiful tribe of Vorticellee, whose relationship is 

 very remote : there are not any published native species bearing the 

 least resemblance to those here described. The genus Acineta of 

 Ehrenberg comes nearest to them. Acineta mystacina, found near 

 Berlin, somewhat resembles our lacustrine species, but its form appears 

 to be much more simple, and the tentacles rise irregularly from dif- 

 ferent parts of the body. It is probable, therefore, that these ani- 

 malcules are undescribed, and their discovery is not void of interest, 

 on account of their forming a more perfect link between the Infusoria 

 and the Campanularian zoophytes than any hitherto known. 



The great class Infusoria, in its present form, includes a hetero- 

 geneous assemblage, which at some not very distant period must be 

 broken up ; and it will then probably be found that the infusory 

 animalcules contain the first rudimentary forms of nearly all the in- 

 vertebrate types. — Trans, of Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club, vol. i. 

 p. 365, 



Note on the bird-devouring habit of a species of Spider. 

 By Capt. W. S. Sherwill,. 



During one of my rambles in company with four other officers in 

 the atmy, amongst the Kerrakpur hills, in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Monghyr, on the Ganges, I fell in with several gigantic webs 

 of a large black and red spider, which stretching across our path in 

 many spots, offered from their great strength a sensible resistance when 

 forcing our way through them. The webs are of a bright yellow 

 colour, and we found them stretching from ten to twenty feet, that is, 

 including the gray ropes, which are generally fastened to some neigh- 

 bouring tree or a clump of bamboos, the reticulated portion being about 

 five feet in diameter, in the centre of which the spider sits waiting for 

 its prey ; he is of a dark black hue with red about him, but at this 

 distance of time, now three years, I cannot remember his exact ap- 



