NOTOMMATAD^:. 29 



senta and Euchlanis deflexa ; these appear to be quite independent of the great brain 

 proper. This is here triple ; the middle lobe is pear-shaped, depending considerably 

 below the mastax, with a long slender neck, quite pellucid, having a great red eye 

 seated near its mid-length ; on each side is a similar but shorter lobe. The trophi are 

 of the pattern in N. aurila : each uncus is somewhat slender, and seems to comprise but 

 two fingers ; but, from the opacity of the parts, I am not certain. Under pressure, 

 there seemed to be five, blade-shaped, and closely parallel. A very long oesophagus 

 leads to a wide and ample alimentary canal, divided by a sensible constriction into 

 stomach and intestine, even when there is no diminution in their common outline. But 

 this condition I saw rather suddenly much altered ; so that the constriction was made 

 as manifest as if a cord had been drawn tightly round. Both stomach and intestine 

 were, in all specimens that I have seen, moderately full of dark yellow-brown granular 

 food, interspersed with orange -coloured oil-globules, brilliantly refractive, most thickly 

 at the pyloric end. The alimentary canal, when moderately filled with food, has a very 

 peculiar appearance, as if divided by constrictions, both transverse arid longitudinal, 

 into squares. This is not accidental, but characteristic, being seen in every example 

 that has occurred to me, and distinguishing the species from all its congeners. A pair 

 of ovate, colourless gastric glands are seated on the two shoulders of the stomach. 

 The contractile vesicle is large ; the branchiae take the form of two very long, and very 

 slender bags, transparent, but much corrugated, rather than of convoluted cords. I 

 counted three vibratile tags, which happened to be all on the same side : one level 

 with the eye, one with the lumbar seta, and one intermediate. The ovary appeared 

 normal. The fusiform body ends in a well-marked tail, stiff, transparent, tapering to 

 a point, but diminishing abruptly in the middle, forming a distinct shoulder there. 

 Through it runs a pair of chain-like glands, resembling those in the toes, supposed to 

 be mucous. A foot of two joints carries a pair of straight, short, conical acute toes. 



The manners of this striking creature were rather sluggish, though it moved and 

 turned and twisted about restlessly. I did not see it swim. I had an interesting 

 observation of the character of its food, and of its mode of feeding. The water was 

 much stocked with the finer desmids and diatoms, great Closteriums, Euastrums, 

 Cosmariums, and the like. I caught my Copeus eating a great Epithemia turgida. He 

 had evidently only just seized it with his protruded jaws, and had drawn one end of the 

 desmid into his mouth, and was vigorously biting it. After a while, the frustule was 

 pierced, as was seen by the cloud of dark granules that rushed down the mastax. All 

 the contents were quickly sucked-in, till the shell was as empty and clear as a glass 

 vessel ; to the manifest increase of the dark contents of the alimentary canal. Then it 

 was contemptuously thrown away. Another had partly gnawed through a slender fila- 

 ment of conferva, and had extracted, and was still extracting, the green granules from 

 its interior, just at that part. Afterward I saw it devouring a small crescentic 

 Closterium. This it ate up bodily ; and it occupied considerable time, even after the 

 desmid was within the buccal funnel, and the end within its jaws. Thus it appears 

 that this large species is a true vegetarian in diet. I have seen several more, all from 

 a ditch in Sutton Park, Birmingham. All agree in these characteristic details. Each 

 one has been quite clean, and totally devoid of any gelatinous covering. * P. H.G.] 



Length, ^ inch ; width, T | 5 inch. Habitat. Birmingham (T.B.). 



C. SPICATUS, Hudson. 



(PL XVI. fig. 2.) 

 Notommata spicata . Hudson, J. Roy. Micr. Soc. 2 Ser. vol. v. 1885, p. 612, pi. xii. fig. 5. 



[SP. CH. Lumbar regions furnished with tubules, sctigerous at their extremities ; 

 two occipital antennae ; brain threefold ; tail saccate. 



In this species we see two pairs of what we may call tentacles, of consimilar 



