The Microscope. 7 



sion " and its accompanying hours for study of slides and appa- 

 ratus, some one else would soon have done so. The times were 

 ripe for it, and all I believe are agreed that the interest and 

 value of our meetings in the future will be greatly enhanced 

 by a still greater prominence being given to this feature. Its 

 importance can readily be seen. The papers, valuable as they 

 may be, can be read at home and understood fully as well as 

 by those who journey to the meetings, and if one cannot share 

 in the discussions, he can follow them more clearly often from 

 the printed report than from the hearing of the ear. The cost 

 of a trip to one of the meetings will buy a dozen treatises and 

 periodicals full of papers, and if that is all which may be 

 learned at the American Sociely of Microscopists, they may be 

 wise:>t who stay at home. But if an opportunity is given for 

 careful study of specimens described in the papers, and of ap- 

 paratus exhibited, and if the various processes and methods of 

 work are practically shown by experienced manipulators, then 

 our meeting will afford to those who attend something which 

 cannot be learned from books or journals or any mere verbal 

 descriptions, and those who journey to them will be well repaid. 

 But other reasons I must defer to another time. 



A LITTLE INFUSORIAL TERATOLOGY. 



BY ALFRED C. STOKES, M. D. 



THE .struggle for existence is as great among the invisible in- 

 habitants of the standing pool as among the animal life of 

 the forest, the plants of the field, or the largest denizens of the 

 aquatic world. Among the lowly infusoria the strong -r prey 

 upon the weak quite as often as the multicellular and macro- 

 scopic creatures about us destroy their less powerful neighbors. 

 Not an evening passes without bringing to the gaze of the 

 microscopical observer some portion of the struggle. An infu- 

 sorian captures a monad, a rotifer seizes the animalcule, the 

 rhizopodous Aetinosphaerium engulfs the rotifer, a Turbellarian 

 worm swallows therhizopod, a fish takes the worm, and finally 

 an Izaak Walton hooks the fish. Those slightly stronger than 

 the weakest sometimes escape immediate slaughter, only to 

 present the results of the contest to the end of their little life. 



