THE INSURGENCE OF LIFE 135 



all represented. In a report on the Bryozoa collected on 

 the Clare Island Survey, Mr. A. R. Nicholls notices that 

 from one stone no fewer than fourteen different species 

 of these colonial ' moss-animals ' were obtained. A small 

 stone bore eleven species of the same class ! We see the 

 same filling of every corner all the world over. 



Red Snow. The striking phenomenon of Red Snow 

 was known to the ancients and is mentioned by Aristotle. 

 It occurs all the world over and affords a good illustration 

 of what we call insurgence. It seems to be most abundant 

 in the Far North and Sir John Ross described the ' Crim- 

 son Cliffs ' of Greenland as extending for miles ! The ordin- 

 ary ' red snow ' is due to swarms of a Flagellate Infusorian, 

 Sphcerella (or Protococcus) nivalis, sometimes claimed by 

 the botanists, but there are sometimes red animals of higher 

 degree, namely Rotifers, Water-Bears, Mites, associated 

 with it forming a ' Red Snow ' fauna. The facts have 

 been recently summed up by Mr. James Murray, who was 

 zoologist on Sir Ernest Shackle ton's Antarctic Expedition. 

 He found abundance of a red Rotifer, which he named 

 Philodina gregaria, forming conspicuous blood-red stains 

 on stones at the margins of lakes, and increasing with 

 prodigious rapidity. It lives frozen in ice for years, and 

 resumes activity whenever the ice melts. Vogt found a 

 related species (Philodina roseola] on the Alps along with 

 the Flagellate ' red snow ' ; Langerheim found the same 

 association in Ecuador. The red colour of both Alpine and 

 Polar Rotifers is confined to the stomach, which looks 

 as if the colour were due to the Rotifers making meals of 

 the Flagellates. Mr. Murray notices in addition that M. 

 Gain of the Charcot Antarctic Expedition found red mites 

 along with the red snow, and that Ehrenberg long ago 



