The Motif era of JSouth Africa. By Charles F. Eousselet. 403 



railway crosses a river of the name of Amgusi. A small engine 

 by the side of the railway pumps water from the river into a large 

 elevated iron tank for feeding the locomotives. After our engine 

 had had her fill I put my net under the hose, and the engineer 

 allowed the water to run through for a few minutes. With the 

 hand-glass I could see a few Kotifers swimming about in the 

 bottle, so I preserved the material, and afterwards found the 

 following nine species in the tube thus collected — 



Philodina ? sp. With two teeth in jaw. 

 Synehwta pectinata Ehrbg. 

 Copeus Ehrenbergi Ehrbg.-Gosse. 

 Polyarthra platyptera Ehrbg. 

 Euchlanis oroplia Gosse. 

 Dinocharis tetractis Ehrbg. 

 Monostyla lunaris Ehrbg. 



„ bulla Gosse. 

 Metopidia solidus Gosse. 



The large Copeus Ehrenbergi (that is, Ehrenberg's Notommata 

 Copeus and Gosse's Copeus labiatus, which are certainly synonyms) 

 seems to have a wide distribution in South Africa, and over the 

 world generally. It is well known that this species has a thick, 

 very transparent, gelatinous covering, closely adherent to the 

 integument, which often can be seen only by a very good dark 

 ground illumination. In the present preserved specimen, the 

 gelatinous envelope seems to have been dissolved away, disclosing 

 numerous fine, short, stiff hairs all over the ventral and dorsal 

 surface of the body. This is a most unusual condition of the 

 exterior integument of a Rotifer, and it may be that these hairs, 

 which have not been noticed before, either secrete the gelatinous 

 envelope, or are instrumental in keeping it in position, being them- 

 selves invisible when immersed in the gelatinous substance. This 

 is a point which will require further investigation. 



Continuing our journey, the next place I was able to collect at 

 was a station beyond Gwaai, where a stream forms a rather shallow 

 pool close to the station. Here I obtained a large spherical alga, 

 allied to Volvox globator, which proves to be a new species and will 

 be described elsewhere. The Rotifers found in this pool are the 

 following seven species — 



Lacinularia elliptica Shephard. 

 Megalotrocha spinosa Thorpe. 

 Euchlanis oropha Gosse. 

 Pterodina patina Ehrbg. 

 Anurcea aculeata var. vcdga Ehrbg. 



„ „ „ curvicornis Ehrbg. 



,, cochlearis Gosse. 



