144 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[August, 



great interest to many persons who 

 have seen it. Such an expeditious 

 way of making the sections should 

 lead many to prepare them. A cat's 

 tooth furnishes a section of very good 

 size for examination. We have since 

 been led to believe that Mr. Williams' 

 section was made by the process de- 

 scribed above. If so, it is good proof 

 of the excellence of the method. — Ed.] 



Pond Life in Winter. 



Noticing some observations on the 

 above subject, and being myself for 

 many years an ardent ' pond man,' I 

 w^ill, with your kind permission,* give 

 an instance or two of my success in this 

 little worked-out line of biology (es- 

 pecially in America) as regards pond 

 hunting in the winter months. As 

 far as my records go I have found 

 very little difference. I am general- 

 ly as successful on a winter's day as 

 in the summer time, for in the hot 

 weather you may go to pool after 

 pool, ditch after ditch, and find noth- 

 ing but thin mud perhaps, the result 

 of continued drought. Then only 

 fairly large lakes or resei"voirs can be 

 of any service, and these are gener- 

 ally very low and muddy round the 

 borders and require some care, or else 

 up to your knees you go unless you 

 have a good drag to send across. Last 

 winter I thought to venture out for 

 some material for study, and I visited 

 a large reservoir not many miles from 

 Birmingham. The ice was very thin 

 on account of a slight current. I 

 dragged that pool, and that one haul 

 sufficed to keep me fully employed 

 for a month or inore. I will briefly 

 state v^^hat I found in that one haul 

 on the weeds, Anacharis and Myri- 

 ophylluni. 



I St. That beautiful compound crea- 

 ture Dendroso7na I'adians ; there 

 were inany, very many, large colony 

 stocks. I saw several much larger 

 than the one figured in Saville Kent's 

 Manual, -with the ciliated embryos 

 tolerably plentiful in the water swim- 

 ming about. I took a fine gathering 



at the time to Mr. T. Bolton. Also 

 Trichophrys epistylides^ Podophrys 

 cyclopeum^ Acineta grandis^ a new 

 species, A. 7nystacina^ A. ceinniu- 

 artini^ Raphidiophrys elegans^ R. 

 pallida Schultze, Actinophrys sol 

 and Eichornii^ Stichoti'icha reinex^ 

 Arcella vulgaris^ dentata^ aculeata^ 

 Amoeba villosa ; also Stephanoceros 

 Eichornii^ very plentiful and very 

 large ; Melicerta ringens^ Cephalo- 

 siphon limnias^ Limais ceratophyl- 

 /?', V^aginicola^ CEcistes, CotJnir- 

 nia, Epistylis digitalis, Opercula- 

 ria, Eloscularia regalis, ambigtta, 

 ornata, three species of Anurea^ 

 three of Brachionus. I have also 

 generally managed to find Volvox in 

 the winter in one pool or another, fre- 

 quently under thick ice. Some years 

 ago I found the most beautiful gath- 

 ering I ever found of Volvox under 

 the ice. They were very large and 

 plentiful, showing the beautiful yel- 

 low encysted, or, as it is called, ' i^est- 

 ing stage.' The Dendrosoma I had 

 under the microscope for weeks, hop- 

 ing to be able to see for myself what 

 is spoken of by Mr. Levick in the 

 Manual, the genetic process of mul- 

 tiplication, but so far have not been 

 successful . I generally go pond hunt- 

 ing twice a week. I frequently walk 

 15 or 16 miles where there is no kind 

 of railway, and in all weathers, and 

 so far as my experience goes I like 

 winter almost, if not quite, as well as 

 summer ; for a long journey with a 

 lot of glass bottles and other appa- 

 ratus fags one so. I can fully agree 

 with your remarks in your Journal 

 regarding the way in which this kind 

 of study is neglected in America, as 

 it appears to be. I think the micro- 

 scopists in England are much more 

 devoted to pond life on the whole than 

 the Americans appear to be, and in 

 such a glorious hunting ground, too, 

 as, in my opinion, is pretty well 

 proved by the beautiful work fust 

 published on Desmids of the United 

 States by Mr. Wolle. I am trulv de- 

 lighted with it, as it contains so many 

 examples in addition to Ralf s work. 



