30 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[February 1, 1899. 



inward parts also the ancient forms bore a near resemblance 

 to the modern. The student of the fossils will find a 

 voluminous literature at his disposal, foremost among the 

 authorities being our own countryman, Prof. Rupert Jones, 

 whose researches upon these organic remains have been 

 continued during the last fifty years, and still continue. 

 Half a century of work upon the same kind of material is 

 some testimony to the fascination of a subject which can 

 bring little in the way of fee or fame, but rather, like 

 virtue, is its own reward. Another devoted student of the 

 Ostracoda, both recent and fossil, was the late Dr. David 

 Robertson, who, by living to be almost ninety years of age, 

 showed that the pursuit was at least not inconsistent with 

 longevity. How and when and where to obtain the fresh- 

 water forms will be found concisely explained in Robertson's 

 own words in Appendix B to " The Naturalist of Cumbrae. " 



Eucytherura giibera. lateral and dorsal Tiews. From 

 G. W. Miiller.* 



Here it may suffice to say that Ostracoda are to be found 

 in the depths of the ocean and on its shores, in slow- 

 running streams, in marshes, ditches, and ponds. The 

 streams and the pools need not be very extensive, for Brady 

 and Norman explain that Scottia Bnuniana, originally 

 described as a fossil, was found on the shores of Loch 

 Fadd, in the Isle of Bute, under the following circum- 

 stances : " A spring rises on a bank close to the loch, into 

 which the water finds its way among the grass ; the water 

 is nowhere trickling more than two or three inches deep 

 among the herbage. Here, amidst multitudes of lUplwjia, 

 Scottia Brouniana lives, with Uyodroimis Robertxoni, Her- 

 petocxjpris re}itan.sa.nditumef(wt(i, Cypridopsis Newtoni, Candona 

 Candida and Candonopsis Kini/sleii as its companions." 

 This is but a small rivulet to furnish seven species and 

 almost as many genera of the group. Still more singular 



• Fauna und Flora des Golfes von Neapel. Ostracoden. too G W 

 Muller, 1894. 



is the habitat of Fritz MiiUer's Elpidium bromeliarum. 

 This species, which is now referred to the genus Xestole^ 

 bcrisjlives in fresh water, though belonging to the Cytheridae, 

 a family almost exclusively marine. It is nearly as broad 

 as long, and much broader than high. In shape it is 

 compared to a coflfee berry, and, if reliance can be placed 

 upon form, it appears to have no nearer relative than the 

 KIpe piiit/niii, a Silurian fossil, five times as large as itself. 

 In its ancestry, in its outline, in its absence from the sea, 

 this Uttle species is remarkable, but, above all, in the 

 reservoirs that furnish its dwelling place. These are aerial 

 though not in the clouds. They are the miniature cisterns 

 formed by rain water in the leaves of parasitic plants, the 

 Bromelias of Brazil. Those pools are visited by innumer^ 

 able insects, by worms, isopods, arachnids, myriapods, 

 batrachians, and even cobras, but, in the opinion of Fritz 

 Miiller, the little FApidium is almost the only animal that 

 lives in them from its birth to its death. As it has no 

 means of migrating of its own accord from one Bromelia 

 to another, whether on the same or different trees, and as 

 almost every BromeUa has the Ostracoda, the inference is 

 that, like the pollen of flowers, they are carried from plant 

 to plant by some of the more freely locomotive visitors. 



Without visiting the forests of Brazil, many species oi 

 Ostracoda can be procured from various waters by the use 

 of a fine net at the end of a stick, by the washing of water- 

 weeds, and the sifting of dredged-up mud. So far as the 

 " boxes," or closed valves are concerned, there is not much 

 to choose between fossil and recent specimens. A new 

 interest begins with the study of the internal machinery 

 and observance of the habits of the living animal. The 

 resemblance to a mollusc is at once seen to be purely super- 

 ficial. There are here the eyes and the jointed appendages 



Body of an Asterope, without the valves. From Claus. 



of an arthropod. There are also the two pairs of antennas 

 in which crustaceans rejoice, while the poor insect has to 

 be content with a single pair. There are the mandibles 

 or jaws, without which no lofty destiny is complete, and 

 after these come four or five other pairs of appendages, 

 beginning with the first and second maxilhe, and ending 

 with pairs to which in some instances the name of legs 

 can only be applied by courtesy. 



It is not to be denied that beginners may find themselves, 

 at first, bewildered as to the sorting of all these organs or 

 limbs. That they are where they are without the least 

 undue crowding and crumpling is a miracle of natural 



