FEESir^'ATEE LIFE. 121 



FPwESHWATEE LIFE.— H. EOTIFEEA. 



BY EDT^TN SMITH, ESQ., II. A. 



(Continued from page 96. J 



I do not propose any elaborate description of examples, and sliall 

 merely mention, with a few notes, those which have occurred to me in 

 the neighbourhood of Nottingham, and which are tolerably common 

 everywhere. I have of course met with our old friends Q^cistes, Floscu- 

 laria, Melicerta, and other sedentary or case-inhabiting kinds. Accoi-ding 

 to my experience, the sheath of (Ecistes is generally of an irregular, 

 somewhat broken form, and more or less dingy with adhering vegetable 

 matter. Last March I found one with three eggs at the bottom of the 

 sheath, close to the supporting stalk. Floscularia, with its long pedicel, 

 might easily be taken at first sight for a large YorticeUa. Bound the 

 opening at the free extremity, there are five, or occasionally six, knob-like 

 processes, each armed with a radiating bundle of long cilia, finer than 

 any spun glass. These long filaments, however, have no concern in 

 producing currents towards the mouth ; such currents being evidently 

 due to vibratile ciha within the mouth or gullet itself. The species 

 which I have most frequently met with is, F. cornuta, distinguished by a 

 little horn or feeler at the back of one of the knob-like processes. The 

 eggs cluster in a group of two or three about the pedicel ; and through 

 their thin covering may often be seen the eye-spots of the young ones. 

 The outer sheath is perfectly transparent, and has a refractive power 

 nearly the same as that of water. Consequently it is almost invisible, 

 except by means of particles collecting on its delicate surface. Melicerta 

 possesses a ciliated disk, arranged in wavy lobes, presenting a front 

 aspect not unlike the styhsh cap one sees in portraits of Mary Queen 

 of Scots. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the general effect, when this 

 graceful wreath is in full action. Still more noteworthy is the animal's 

 building talent. Into a httle pit near the head, particles of selected 

 matter are swept from the water, and there moulded into conical pellets, 

 which the animal then deposits in regular courses one upon another, like 

 rounds of bricks, ajid so bxiilds up its case. These cases, of a reddish 

 brown colour, are easily detected with the naked eye, attached by one 

 end to branches of myriophyllum, or roots of lemna. By chpping out the 

 bits of vegetation to which the several specimens cling, four or five may 

 be got together in the field of a two-thu-ds objective ; and then the display, 

 under spot-lens illumination, is simply magnificent. A zoophj-te trough 

 made specially shallow from front to back, is the most convenient for 

 showing them. With regard to Steplianoceros, or the Crown-homed 

 Eotifer, it should be noticed that the lobes of the wheel-apparatus take 

 the extreme form of so many tentacles, fi-inged with whorls of moving 

 ciha. The protecting case is highly transparent. Few specimens have 

 rewarded my search in this neighbourhood. 



TVe. now pass from those kinds which envelope themselves in a 

 sheath of various structm-e, into which they can retire at will, to the 

 free-swimming group. The latter constitute by far the larger division of 



