34o 



ORGANS OF DIGESTION. 



FIG. I;7- 



forwards, and the sides of the abdominal cavity are occupied 

 chiefly by the large lobed sacs of the ovaries (11 7- A. k.) and 

 the long winding glandular sacs, considered as testicles (llj* 

 A. /.), which terminate behind the cloaca in a small vesicle 

 like a vesicula seminalis ( 1 1 7. A. m.) Their food is often brought 

 from a distance by vibrating their anterior cilia while their 

 body is attached to some motionless surface by the two long 

 terminal fleshy retractile peduncles (117- A. n.) In some, 

 as the stephanoceros, the food is collected in a large buccal 

 cavity, anterior to the maxillae and behind the tentaculiform 

 ciliated arms, before it is submitted part by part to the act of 

 mastication. The gastric portion of the alimentary canal va- 

 ries much in its form in different rotiferous animalcules. In 

 the diglena, enteroplea, synchaeta, and brachionus, it presents 

 a less uniform and more globular form than in the hydatina 

 (Fig. 82. B-.) In the diglena lacustris (Fig. 117- B.) the 

 sharp pointed maxillee (117- B. a.) arid their muscular appa- 

 ratus (117. B. b.} are succeeded by a lengthened and narrow 

 oesophagus (117 A. c.) which opens into a short denned glo- 

 bular stomach (11 7. B. d.) From different parts of the 



