Is Pedalion a Rotifer ? 
211 
be neatly folded when acted upon by the retractor muscles. Of 
these Pedalion possesses no less than sis on each side (Fig. 2, b), 
as well as one long one (Fig. 2, c), which is attached to a point in 
the mid-dorsal line just under the dorsal limb, and stretches 
obliquely thence to the trochal disk, where it is fastened symmetri- 
cally by two branches. 
To return to the atoms which have been driven along the 
ciliated groove till they reach the buccal funnel (Fig. 1, a). This 
latter resembles that of Triarthra ; it is densely ciliated, and leads 
directly to the mastax. The mastax is like that of Limnias 
ceratophylli ; and the entrance to it from the buccal funnel is 
guarded as in Brachionus Mulleri (and other species) and in 
Floscularia campanulata, by two chitinous lips (Fig. 1, b), if I 
may so term them, which are often raised to secure some desirable 
morsel. The food after being comminuted in the mastax enters a 
short oesophagus, and passes thence into a nearly cylindrical 
stomach. The walls of the stomach are very thick and elastic. 
In a dying specimen I have seen the food expelled and the walls 
close right in upon themselves. In general the stomach is 
greatly distended with an orange-coloured food, and gets sadly in 
the way of anyone who wishes to make a paper for the Micro- 
scopical Journal. At the anterior end of the stomach are the usual 
pair of gastric glands (c) ; less spherical in form, it is true, than 
they are in many rotifers, but less aberrant than those of Pterodina 
patina or of Brachionus Mulleri. I am pretty sure, too, that I saw 
now and then two other small glandular-looking bodies on the 
oesophagus, similar to those of Euchlanis dejlexa, figured by Gosse 
in his paper in the ‘ Philosophical Transactions ’ on the manducatory 
organs of the rotifers ; plate xvi., fig. 12 , n. 
From the stomach the food passes into a ciliated intestine (/), 
a broad short chamber with even thicker walls than those of the 
stomach, and with much coarser cilia. Although the division 
between the stomach and intestine is perhaps more marked in 
Pedalion than in the majority of rotifers, still it exists to some 
degree in all that I have seen except in Asplanchna priodonta; 
though in some it is little more than a temporary folding-in of the 
lower third of the alimentary canal. 
The faecal matter is expelled at the anus (h). For some time 
I imagined that the anus lay at the point (g) in the ventral surface, 
where is seen a curious projection. It is true that this would be 
a unique position — but then a rotifer with six legs may be con- 
sidered as fairly entitled to have it in a unique position. Moreover, 
both the ciliated intestine and the passage of the anus are often so 
completely closed that no one would suspect there was an opening. 
Add to this that the viscera do not always lie in the handy position 
r 2 
