THE VORTICELLIDE, 89 
(3.) Epistylis leucoa, [Fig.6.] Thisis amagnificent species, perhaps 
the largest of all the Vorticellide. The main stem is slender, branching 
out at the top into a large cluster of bells. It contains no muscle, and is 
therefore quite rigid, hence the name, from epi, upon, and stulos, a pillar. 
Each bellis nevertheless provided with a short rudimentary muscle, 
[Fig. 7,] which enables it to give a slight twitch when alarmed. On 
account of their large size the bells of Hpistylis are first-rate objects for 
showing the protoplasmic movements. The whole contents of the bell 
may be seen marching slowly up one side and down the other steadily 
and without intermission—an overwhelming proof of the fallacy of 
Hhrenberg’s theory that the vacuoles are independent stomachs all 
connected together, and to the mouth by an intestinal canal—for it is 
obviously impossible that such should be the case, when the whole 
cell-contents, vacuoles and all, revolve within it. 
[TO BE CONTINUED. ] 
MOSS HAR TP ais: 
BY JAMES E, BAGNALL, 
(Concluded from page 89.) 
“Pleasant both to eye and mind, is an old garden wall, dark with 
age, gray with lichen, green with mosses of beautiful hues and fairy 
elegance of form,” and on such habitats a great variety of species of 
moss will often be found; an old wall is the bryologist’s botanic garden, 
where he may leisurely study his pet plants. A slight shower followed 
by bright sunshine, such a day as we often get in May, will often give 
him a pleasurable sight, such as he will long remember, for these 
alternations of wet and dry call into full play the peculiar properties of 
the annulus, and if he have only patience to watch and wait, he will see 
the little lids of many of the capsules thrown off by a sort of magic 
force; and if the moss he is watching be a Bryum or a Hypnum, the 
outer fringe will be thrown back like the rays of a beautiful star fish, 
the inner fringe all the while opening and closing, and the spores 
shot forth, by some hidden force within, a little cannonade of tiny 
balls, seeming as though the fairies were practising their minute artil- 
lery. Or, if continued dry weather has shrivelled up the mosses, so 
that they look more dead than alive, a slight shower will at once 
reanimate the shrivelled tufts, and he will see every moss as it drinks in 
the grateful fluid, waken again into life, the shrivelled-up leaves once 
more assume their natural habit, the whole mass looks like a new growth, 
and the sudden resurrection calls to one’s mind that wonderful desert 
plant Anastatica, the Rose of Jericho. But why direct one’s attention to 
walls for watching phenomena that must be common to all moss 
habitats? Simply because a wall is so convenient, and the whole 
phenomena may be watched in such places without the fatigue of 
stooping. Stone walls, mud walls, and walls of every sort and degree, 
are all worthy of the bryologist’s particular attention, and the older the 
