EE 
A TUBE-DWELLING STENTOR. 281 
After frequent search, however, I was rewarded by finding a much 
larger specimen, having an extreme length of about 1-22 of an inch, and I 
bow find it to be a Stentor, with the ciliated disc most curiously shaped, 
its general outline being not unlike that of the human ear, especially as 
seen in one position. 
The disc instead of being nearly round and at right angles to the 
body, asin S. Miilleri or S. polymorphus, stands upright with a frontal 
lip-like continuation in opposition, forming a cavity which might make a 
suitable seat for a Trachelius ovum or other similarly shaped Infusorian, 
and looks under the microscope like the old-fashioned bonnet, known as 
the coal-scuitle pattern. 
The body is trumpet-shaped and without cilia, the whole surface 
being furnished with long contractile hairs or bristles, like the rays of an 
Actinophrys, which are ranged at equal distances, and, asit turns about in 
its tube, give it quite a chevausx de frise-like character, 
The disc has, besides a row of these setw round its margin, a fine 
wreath of cilia, and behind a funnel-shaped mouth, also ciliated to its 
termination, is seen a large contractile vesicle, a moniliform nucleus 
being, in my specimen, just traceable. \ 
Its colour is dirty white, and it dwells in a roughly constructed tube, 
formed by a sticky secretion, and, the particles of rejected matter, which 
are continuously falling upon its disc, diatoms, fragments of alge, and 
anything else coming in its way being utilised for the purpose of building 
up its tube, it has the ragged appearance often seen in the cases of 
some of the caddis worms. 
These particles are precipitated by the action of the cilia, and trickle 
down its side, making their way through the setz so closely to its surface 
as to appear almost as though enclosed within the animal, the tube being 
perceptibly augmented even whilst under observation, and certainly 
giving the idea that it is under the control of the creature, whether they 
are thus guided to its base or driven off, a point I have felt pretty sure 
about in other Stentors, which, I believe, accomplish this by reversing 
the action of the cilia on the body, at one time working them upwards, 
and at another downwards, 
It is not social in its habits, as Ehrenberg styles its congeners, which 
often form a white gelatinous mass, and live in groups, but is isolated, and 
most easily distinguished from other Stentors. I have not yet recognised 
it in its free state, and, judging from the smallness of the specimens 
found, it would appear to form the tube at the beginning of its career. 
Turning to the Transactions of the Royal Microscopical Society for 
April, 1870, I find a new tube-dwelling Stentor described and figured by 
Dr. Charles A. Barrett, under the provisional name of Stentor Barrettii, 
which, I have no doutt, is identical with mine, though his has a well- 
formed smooth tube. 
This is the second, if not the third, addition to the ever charming 
family of Stentors, for which we are indebted to the before-named 
locality—Barnt Green. 
QQ 
