208 EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE 



where it curves round, and bending beneath terminates in 

 a blunt tail, armed with two strong hooks, which can at 

 pleasure be thrust down through the narrow orifice of the 

 shell, and become partially straightened by being forcibly 

 thrown backward. This great central mass is mainly occu- 

 pied by the alimentary canal, in which food in various stages 

 of. assimilation may at all times be seen, and in which the 

 interesting function of digestion can be witnessed through- 

 out, from the first seizure of the atom and its mastication 

 by the jaws to the discharge of the effete remains. 



The individual before us does not carry at this time 



eggs in the process of development; but the deficiency is 

 supplied by a Daphnia which is playing about in the same 

 drop of water. Here you perceive, between the arched 

 outline of the shell and the sinuous outline of the free 

 soft body, an open space of some size, which constitutes 

 a receptacle, in which the eggs are deposited as they are 

 laid, and in which they remain not only until the little 

 animals are hatched, but until they have acquired a suffi- 

 cient maturity to swim about and get their independent 

 living. 



This receptacle in which you may see five or six eggs 



