210 MICROSCOPY FOR BEGINNERS. 



They are very difficult to see even with a high -power 



objective. 



The sheath is usually colorless and transparent, with 

 considerable firmness. It often surrounds the body up 

 to the origin of the arms. 



When a small animal once enters the cage formed by 

 the arms it seldom escapes, but is gradually driven 

 down into the funnel, when the Rotifer partially closes 

 the front opening, and with a very perceptible gulp 

 swallows and passes it on to the mastax. 



/Stephanoceros does not seem to be very common. 

 The writer has found it sparingly on Myriophyllum as 

 late as the middle of November. 



3. FLOSCULARIA (Fig. 143). 



The front of the body is here also like an open fun- 

 nel, the narrow part leading to the mastax. The ciliary 

 disk is replaced by five little rounded elevations on the 

 front margin, each bearing a thick clus- 

 ter of long, fine, radiating hairs, which 

 are flexible, and movable at the ani- 

 mal's will, but which never vibrate like 

 cilia. The long foot is attached to a sub- 

 merged object, and is surrounded by a 

 soft and transparent sheath. When the 

 Rotifer retires into this protective cov- 

 Fig. 143. ering, it folds the wide front part of the 



Floscularia orudta. 



body together, the clusters of long hairs 

 seem to become much tangled into a single bunch, and 



