54 Marvels of Pond-Life, 



CHAPTER V. 



APRIL. 



The beautiful Floscule — Mode of seeking for Tubicolor Rotifers — Mode 

 of illuminating the Floscule — Difficulty of seeing the transparent 

 tube — Protrusion of long hairs — Lobes — Gizzard — Hairy lobes of 

 Floscule not rotatory organs — Glass troughs — Their construction 

 and use — Movement of globules in lobes of Floscule — Chsetonotus 

 larus — Its mode of swimming — Coleps hirtus — Devourer of dead 

 Entomostraca — Dead Rotifer and Vibriones — Theories of ferment- 

 ation and putrefaction — Euplotes and Stylonichia — Fecundity of 

 Stylonichia. 



EW living creatures deserve so well the appel- 

 lation of ^^ beautiful '* as the Floscularia ornata^ 

 or Beautiful Floscule^ although to contemplate 

 a motionless and uncoloured portrait, one would 

 imagine that it exhibited no graces of either colour or 

 form. Mr. Gosse has, however, done it justice, and 

 the drawing in his '^ Tenby ^' is executed with that 

 rare combination of scientific accuracy and artistic 

 skill, for which the productions of his pencil are 

 renowned. 



Probably the sketches in several works of authority 

 representing the long cilia as short bristles, are merely 

 copies from old drawings^ from objects imperfectly 



