PKESIDKNT S AI>1)1{KSS. Xlll 



that 1 felt sure that a few days without rain would entirely 

 obliterate tliis very temporary habitat, and so it proved, for on 

 going to the same place a week afterwards not a drop of water 

 was to be seen there ; indeed, so dry and hard liad the- ground 

 become that I felt almost in doubt if I had not missed tlie 

 exact spot. However, I was quite unwilling to return without 

 a further effort to hnd this particular rotifer, as I felt quite 

 sure this could be only a [)lace where it had come by some 

 extraordinary means, and I therefore resolved to re-search the 

 only two ponds I knew in the immediate neighbourhood, which 

 I did, entirely without success. 



I then looked out for one of those useful but innocent 

 auxiliaries to natural science, a farm labourer, and having got 

 over the difficulty as to what was meant by a pond by explaining 

 that it Avas a hole in a field where the cattle and sheep get 

 water, received the information that there was a farmer who 

 not only ''kep a good dell o' cattle, but that he had a field up 

 the bonk with a hole where they got water,"' and as far as he 

 knew it never dried up. 



To this "bonk"' and this "hole"" I made my way, the 

 latter being quite out of view from even a few yards off', and 

 you may guess m,y joy when I found that this was teeming with 

 Xoto)inn-(t(i Bnichiu7iu.s, many of them loaded with their 

 pendulous eggs, and that the pond also contained hosts of other 

 good things, among which w^as that curious organism which 

 afterwards proved to be Rhipidodemlron Hnxleiji. 



I had not been there long when some sheep came near me, 

 as 1 thought, to see what I Avas about, but wdiich my bucolic 

 guide explained in a less flattering way, telling me that they had 

 come to drink, and here was a ready solution to the problem as 

 to how^ the rotifers had got to the puddle on the I'oadside. 

 These unintentional distributors of microscopic life would go 

 to the pond and paddle in the water, aud then readily carry 

 either the eggs or the rotifers themselves upon their feet, and 

 possibly leave some behind in the first puddle they passed 

 throxisrh on their w^av. 



