450 EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE 



ciliary action; the projecting part, called the lip, is said 

 to be furnished with two -slender flexible proboscides; but 

 my power was not sufficient to discern any trace of these. 

 A sort of a ridge, or keel, runs down the length of the 

 body, perceptible by a slight line; numbers of stomach 

 cells also are perceptible. The motion of these lip -monads 

 was not very rapid when unexcited; it is performed by 

 a sort of lateral half-roll, the two sides alternately being 

 turned up, like a boat broadside to a swell, and the line 

 of progression is undulating. 



And now having pretty well exhausted the contents of 

 this live-box, let us try a dip from this other phial from 

 another locality, equally productive, if I am not mistaken. 

 Yes; for, to begin, the stalks of Nitella here are fringed 

 with populous colonies of the most attractive of all the 

 Infusoria, the beautiful Vorticellce. The species is not 

 the common bell-shaped one, but the smaller with pursed 

 mouth, the little V. microstoma. 



Look at this active group, consisting of a dozen or so 

 of glassy vases, shaped something like pears, or elegant 

 antique urns, elevated on the extremities of long and very 

 slender stalks, as slender as threads, and about six times 

 as long as the vases. The stalks grow from the midst of 

 the floccose rubbish attached to the plant, and diverge as 

 they ascend, thus carrying their lovely bells clear of one 

 another. 



Each vase is elegantly ventricose in the middle, termi- 

 nating below in a kind of nipple to which the stalk is 

 attached, and above in a short wide neck with a thickened 

 rim. This last is highly sensitive and contractile ; its inner 

 edge is set round with a circle of vi bra tile cilia, which, 

 when in full play, produce a pair of small circular vortices 



