A YORKSHIRE NATURALIST 147 



compelled reluctantly to resign all connection with 

 the Institution, though for many years I received 

 aural patients at my own consulting-room. 



Meanwhile, though professionally so fully occupied, 

 natural science still interested me. A supply of 

 the exquisite little fresh water animalculse, the 

 Melicerta ringens, made its appearance in a tank in 

 which I was growing Vallisneria spiralis. This 

 circumstance gave me the opportunity of submitting 

 the animal to a careful study, which brought to 

 light a number of points that had escaped the 

 attention of previous observers. My resultant 

 memoir was published in the Quarterly Journal of 

 Microscopical Science. The ovary of the animal was 

 sufficiently distinct, and I was able to watch the 

 entire development of the ovum. When this became 

 matured I desired to discover where and how it 

 made its escape into the surrounding fluid, between 

 which and it a considerable distance seemed to 

 intervene. My first attempt to do so ended in a 

 failure; after watching with my eye at the micro- 

 scope a couple of hours, a professional summons 

 called me away. My second attempt, though very 

 wearisome, was successful. My eye never left the 

 microscope through a long succession of hours. At 

 length I saw the body of the transparent creature 

 violently contorted, the egg passed through a very 

 short oviduct into a long cloaca, by the complete 

 eversion of which organ the ovum was set free. 

 But my labours were not yet ended, though the 



