46 
Transactions of the 
rather by the difficulty they have caused him, than by their intrinsic 
merit ; and to be quite amazed to find that the scientific world are 
as little startled with his corrections of some predecessor’s errors, as 
the mathematical world was by the laborious gentleman who rightly 
proclaimed an error in the two-liundredth decimal place of the ratio 
of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. 
Fortunately we are all as well provided with “ flappers” to bring 
us to our senses, as were the sovereigns of Laputa ; and though in 
our case the “ flappers” are amateurs and not officials, yet they are 
not the less efficient on that account. These excellent but unsym- 
pathetic friends do good service in preventing us from over-estimating 
our labours, and in bringing us back from the realms of science to 
the work-a-day world. Even a man’s own household will now and 
then gently flap him “ as though they loved him but the outside 
world knows no such tenderness (at least in the case of Rotifer- 
hunters), and flaps with the most wholesome vigour. It was only a 
few days ago that I was hawking with a lens over a bottle of port- 
wine-coloured water that I had dipped from a farmyard pond, 
when I became aware that I was being watched by a stout labourer 
leaning on his pitchfork and standing on the dung heap which had 
stained the water I was examining. His face was a picture of pity- 
ing contempt, and said as plainly as a face could do, “ Well ! he 
looks harmless, poor fellow ! — but I’m glad I’ve got my pitchfork:” 
in fact, a naturalist who goes about with bottles, hunting for little 
creatures in ponds and ditches, may think himself lucky if he is 
silently treated as little better than an amiable lunatic ; for the 
great majority of mankind seem to make ignorance of natural history 
a positive merit, by adopting to those who study it a tone of calm 
superiority, which is at once both amusing and irritating. 
To an audience however like the present a naturalist, even if 
he is a specialist, may turn with no little comfort ; for he is sure to 
find among the members of such a Society many who are familiar 
with his own subject, and some who have obtained distinction in 
it ; while even those to whom it is comparatively new have minds 
trained by similar investigations to appreciate his new facts, and to 
exercise a most useful criticism on his new theories. 
It is therefore with great pleasure that I bring before your 
notice one or two discoveries concerning male Rotifers (“a poor 
thing, but mine own ”), quite free from any of Touchstone’s 
anxieties as to being understood and appreciated, though at the 
same time thoroughly agreeing with him that “ When a man’s 
verses are not understood nor a man’s good wit seconded with the 
forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a 
great reckoning in a little room.” 
For ten years after the publication of Ehrenberg’s £ Infusion- 
sthierchen,’ it was supposed that the Rotifera were all hermaphro- 
