122 Tue Microscope. 
circumstances, the constituent rods are connected by an elastic 
membrane, but its presence I have not been able to demon- 
strate. 
In the same gathering with this Chzlodon were innumerable 
specimens of a diatom which I take to be a species of Witzschia, 
the frustules being extremely long and linear, their length much — 
exceeding that of the normal animalcule, yet the latter was 
feeding voraciously upon these plants, the water apparently 
swarming with Chilodons in the condition shown in figure 4, 
where the two extremities of the animalcule seem extended to 
the point of rupture by the pressure of the engulfed diatom. 
(A diagram of a frustule is exhibited by figure 3.) If a single 
infusorian only had been found in this condition I would 
probably have passed it with the thought that the occurrence 
was accidental, but when such accidents occurred by the hun- 
dred they became something more, and demanded investigation. 
It was very evident that the animalcules were feeding on these 
long diatoms, and it at once became an interesting problem to 
ascertain how the feeding process was accomplished, how an 
animal apparently three inches long could swallow an abso- 
lutely inflexible diatom apparently four inches long. I exer- 
cised my guessing powers, and supposed that the frustule was 
passed through the oral aperture until the tail end of the ani- 
malcule was sufficiently protruded to allow the diatom to glide 
out of the pharynx, slip forward through the endoplasm, and 
thus relieve the posterior pressure. But I was almost entirely 
wrong. The animalcule’s way was much better than mine. It 
was laughable, too, to see that——; but this is the way it was 
done. 
The end of the diatom is engaged within the aperture of 
the pharynx and passes rapidly through into the endoplasm, the 
body substance seeming to possess a suction power that draws - 
the food into it with astonishing speed. The act is shown in 
figure 5, where the frustule is passing through the expanded 
pharynx. In figure 6 the diatom has pushed out the infusorian’s 
tail to the limit of endurace, it would seem, but the other end is 
not yet free from the pharnyx, and the situation appears critical. 
At once the pharynx becomes obliquely tilted, as in figure 7, 
and the diatom appears to have actually penetrated the animal- 
