How Animals Work. 



our enchanted gaze like a beautiful silvery pansy blos- 

 som. But how infinitely more wonderful than the 

 petals of that charming flower of our gardens are the 



petal-like lobes of Melicerta 

 the Brick-maker, for they are 

 fringed with stout pointed 

 hairs, or cilia, which, by their 

 constant rhythmical motion 

 in one direction, make each 

 petal-lobe appear to rotate 

 like miniature toothed cog- 

 wheels ; and it is from this 

 wheel-like appearance of the 

 lobes that Melicerta and its 

 numerous interesting rela- 

 tions have received their 

 class name of Rotifera (from 

 the Latin rota, a wheel, and 

 fero, I bear), or Wheel- 

 bearers. 



As Melicerta protrudes 

 itself from the top of its 

 little tower, it appears a 

 somewhat complicated mass 

 of transparent flesh, involved 

 in many folds, with at one 

 side a pair of hooked spines, 

 and at the other two slender, 

 short, blunt processes which 



Bnck-making Rotifer. ^^ horizontally< ^ ^ 



little Rotifer continues to push upwards from its tube, 

 suddenly two large upstanding and two smaller down- 



S2 



