310 Miscellaneous. 
bears cilia; but these are long and delicate, and their movement is 
opposite in the two halves of the apparatus. By their means foreign 
bodies which get into the channel between the two ciliated crests 
are pushed gently along and conveyed to the mouth, being retained 
in their position by the inferior range of cilia. 
The action of the whole apparatus is explained as follows by M. 
Claparéde.:—The superior range of cilia when in action produces 
currents tangential to the vibratile organ and perpendicular to its 
plane. These currents are closed and appear to be nearly of an 
elliptical form ; particles involved in them pass repeatedly over the 
same course, and if they are thus brought in contact with the ex- 
tremities of the inferior cilia, which reach a little above the base of 
the superior range, they pass into the channel above mentioned and 
are pushed along in it towards the mouth. The author remarks 
that the apparent movement of the inferior cilia is from the mouth ; 
but this is illusory and due to the circumstance that the slow elevation 
of each cilium preparatory to its stroke produces a greater effect upon 
the eye than the more rapid stroke itself. This double row of cilia 
in Melicerta and Lacinularia has been observed and described in this 
country by Huxley and Williamson, and in Germany by Leydig; but 
its existence seems to have escaped the notice of subsequent ob- 
servers. 
Professor Huxley has also observed this second row of cilia in 
Philodina, a genus belonging to the Rotatoria Zygotrocha. M. Cla- 
paréde here describes and figures it in Rotifer inflatus (Duj.), in 
which the inferior cilia are borne upon a crest which is oblique 
relatively to the plane of the vibratile wheel ; in all other respects 
the arrangement and action of these inferior cilia are the same as in 
Melicerta. The same characters have been observed in Rotifer vul- 
garis (Ehr.). 
M. Claparéde appends to this paper a note confirming Mr. Gosse’s 
account of the mode in which Melicerta ringens builds up its tube, 
and remarks that this does not appear to have attracted attention on 
the continent.—Annales des Sciences Naturelles, série 5, tome viii. 
pp. 5-12. | 
Habits of Volutes. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.RS, &e. 
Volutes are rarely collected with their animals, except when they 
are accidentally thrown ashore after a storm. They have therefore 
been said to be animals which lived in the depths of the sea. The 
reason they are not found is that, like the Natice, they bury them- 
selves in the sand as soon as the water falls and the sand is left dry 
by the tide; they are only to be procured by digging for them, or 
when the storm has been sufficient to disturb the sand and throw 
them on the beach. Mr. Cutter informs me that he has walked for 
miles along a sandy beach in Australia without finding a specimen ; 
but on talking to a fisherman about the shells, he told him the sand 
abounded with them ; and taking him back to the sand which he 
had traversed; on digging up a spot on the sands which was drier 
