INFUSORIA 465 



introduced himself. There was just room for him to move 

 backward and forward without turning, and the space was 

 about three times his own length. Within this narrow 

 limit he impatiently continued crawling to and fro, mov- 

 ing his uncini with great rapidity and showing their ex- 

 treme flexibility, for as he applied them now to the stem, 

 now to the surface of the glass, these whip-like uncini 

 were sometimes bent double. The so-called styles at the 

 posterior extremity, though less frequently used so, were 

 yet occasionally bent and applied to the surface as feet, 

 so that they are certainly not inflexible as supposed, nor 

 do I see any essential difference between them and the 

 uncini. The whole body was flexible, taking the form of 

 any passage or nook into which it was thrust, yet recover- 

 ing its elasticity immediately the pressure was removed. 

 Its proper form appeared to be convex above and con- 

 cave beneath, rather than flat. After having been thus 

 employed about half an hour under my observation, it 

 became still, moving only its cilia, when I left it a little 

 while, and on my return found that it was dissolved; the 

 outline having entirely disappeared, and nothing being left 

 but the granules, and globular vesicles, that had consti- 

 tuted its viscera, some of which still contained the car- 

 mine which had been very perceptible in the living ani- 

 mal. This was the more remarkable, as there was plenty 

 of water. It looked like suicide, a spontaneous choosing of 

 death rather than hopeless captivity. 



Common as these Stylonycliice are, and abundant be- 

 yond all calculation, where they do occur, from their 

 tendency to self-division, they are not so universally met 

 with as their cousins of the genus Euplotes. These are 

 still more highly organized, and will please you by their 



