CHAPTER XVI 



The Beautiful Floscule and Volvox 

 Globator 



SOME of the microscopic creatures of our ponds 

 possess transparent houses, which we say are 

 hyaline or glassy, for the want of a more appropriate 

 adjective. The name Floscularia ornata would, by 

 its sound, lead us to expect an exceptionally lovely 

 object, and so it is. It is exceedingly small, quite 

 below the power of our unassisted sight, and therefore, 

 if we wish to see its beauty, we must use fairly high 

 powers attached to our microscopes, and we must 

 exercise patience. We see a tiny transparent mass, 

 then it moves forward, extends, and at the same 

 instant it unfolds a bundle of extremely fine feelers. 

 It immediately assumes the shape of a lovely vase 

 with five points with five festooning curves between 

 them. The points seem like small electric lamps, 

 and from these proceed in all directions the cilia, 1 like 

 beams of light, thus completing the idea of electrical 

 resemblance. 



The five-pointed vase surmounts a graceful stalk. 



1 See the frontispiece. 



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