XVI I'KKSIDENT S ADDKKSS. 



just a bit of ordinary garden roclv-work, planted in the usual 

 way with ferns, saxifrages, etc., forming in summer time a 

 perfect maze of plant life, shading the water from some of the 

 sun's rays, and affording shelter for the numerous reptiles 

 which also find a home in or about the pond. The whole thing 

 looks like a very humble attempt at imitation of one of those 

 charming natural ponds one finds among the broken rocks on 

 the rugged mountains of North Wales. 



The botanical specimens here grown are very numerous, 

 and were selected, I am afraid, on the principle adopted by the 

 man who ascertained what were the best remedies for a cold, 

 and then endeavoured to take the whole of them. Every plant 

 which appeared particularly favourable to microscopic life 

 has been introduced in some way or other, the result being 

 that the place is ci'owded beyond all need with such plants as 

 Chara, N'tella, Anacharis, Myriophyllum, Callitriche, Potamo- 

 geton, Lemna, etc., while the sides near the water are clothed 

 with Caltha, Iris, Carex, and several mosses. 



Besides the above there is a plentiful stock of a plant 

 which has proved one of the most fruitful sources of some of 

 the thecated rotifers. It is a grass which, my botanical friends 

 inform me, is Poa jiuitans, and wherever this is found growing in 

 fairly deep water by the pond-hunter, I advise him to pull up 

 some and carefully examine the innumerable small fibres which 

 form its roots. 



This plant seems to serve the tube-dwelling rotifers, as the 

 reindeer does the Laplander, or the palm-tree the Asiatic or 

 African, for it appears to find both food and clothing in 

 abundance, and I have little doubt that the presence of the 

 rare rotifers before named is due to this cause. One of my first 

 finds among its roots was a Floscule, of extraordinary size and 

 beauty. I think I exhibited some at our meetings having a 

 length of over an eighth of an inch, and a Melicerta, if not an 

 unrecorded variety, at least presenting many differences from 

 the well-known Mclicn-tn riiii/ois : and, lastly, the two already- 

 named rarities (Ecistrn innlx'lhi and 'L'uhifohn-id naid-s. 



