WHEEIs-BEARERS 271 



All these phenomena have successively appeared in the 

 egg we are now watching; and at this moment you see 

 the crystalline little prisoner, writhing and turning impa- 

 tiently within its prison, striving to burst forth into 

 liberty. 



Now a crack, like a line of light, shoots round one 

 end of the egg, and in an instant the anterior third of 

 the shell is forced off, and the wheels of the infant Brach- 

 ion are seen rotating as perfectly as if the little creature 

 had had a yrr's practice. Away it glides, the very image 

 of its mother, and swims to some distance before it casts 

 anchor, beginning an independent life. At the moment 

 of the escape of the young, the pushed-off lid of the egg 

 resumes its place, and the egg appears nearly whole again, 

 but empty and perfectly hyaline, with no evidence of its 

 fracture, except a slight interruption of its outline, and a 

 very faint line running across. 



This is a female young: the male is totally unlike the 

 female, and is very much smaller. We can always tell 

 whether an egg is going to produce male or female young, 

 by the great difference in its size, the female being more 

 than twice the bulk of the male egg. All of one brood 

 are of the same sex; we never see a Brachionus with male 

 and female eggs at the same time. What is very strange 

 is that the male has no shell, no spines, no mouth, no 

 jaws, no stomach, no intestines, no ciliary wheels; its 

 cilia, which are very long and powerful, being arranged 

 in one circle round the whole front. Its movements are 

 exceedingly fleet. 



Perhaps you are tired of Brachionw, and are ready to 

 cry ont "Ohel jam satis!" ' Well, then, I will turn him 



1 "Oh dear 1 quite enough of this 1" 



