CHAPTER IV. 



ON THE HAUNTS AND HABITS OF THE BOTIFEEA. 



That the first thing to be done is to catch your game, is a maxim as applicable to Eotifera 

 as to hares ; and it is no less true of these that to hunt for them successfully requires 

 some knowledge of their haunts and habits. To carry away from a pond's side a bottle 

 of dirty water full of slimy weed, is by no means a good plan for catching these animals, 

 even the commonest and coarsest. It is true that there are some fine forms which may 

 be found in very dirty ponds, or even in dirtier puddles : for instance, there can hardly 

 be too dark a farmyard puddle for Hydatina senta, which rejoices in the drainings of 

 a manure-heap, even when the water is of so deep a colour that it is impossible to see the 

 animals in it when you have got them. Triarthra, too, and the beautiful Notops ' clavulata 

 are to be met with in cattle ponds, where the water is like pea-soup ; and Brachioni of 

 all kinds rejoice in such places, especially when green with Eiujlcna and alive with the 

 motile seeds of algre. Indeed, there is one Brachionus, B. annularis, whose presence in 

 a pond bids us put up our bottles and go elsewhere, as it likes water that will support 

 hardly any Rotiferon but itself. 



Floscularia, Stcphanoceros, Melicerta, Limnias, and GScistcs are, of course, to be 

 found only in such places as pond weeds will grow in healthily. Old ponds that have been 

 left long undisturbed are their favourite haunts. Floscularia is a very wide-spread genus, 

 at least so far as one or two species are concerned ; and these may be looked for with 

 every prospect of success in any such pond. Most of the finer and rarer kinds have 

 been found in the Scotch lakes by Mr. Hood, who during the last four years has doubled 

 the number of recorded species by his discoveries in the lochs round Dundee. 



Stcphanoceros, though by no means a rare Rotiferon, is more partially distributed ; it 

 is found often enough in ponds near London and Birmingham ; but I have not heard 

 that a single specimen has ever been met with in the neighbourhood of Clifton. 



It appears also to be rare in Scotland ; as Mr. Hood has found it only once or twice, 

 in marsh-pools in Perthshire. 



Melicerta ringens is to be found almost everywhere. It has even been seen swarming 

 in one of the aquaria in the parrot-house in the Clifton Zoological Gardens. The roots 

 of duckweed, the fibres of algae, the leaves of Myriophyllum, and of all sorts of water 

 plants, bear this very common species, as they do also the tubes of Limnias and CEcistes. 

 Lacinularia and Megalotrocha have similar tastes, but are less frequently met with, 

 especially the latter. This must be a comparatively rare genus, as it has been sent to 

 me but three or four times in many years. Cephalosiphon is also rare. I once 

 found a large colony of it, on a water weed at Nailsea in the big pond near the railway 

 station, and it has been sent to me from Cheltenham and London ; 2 but I never met with 

 it again. 



Conochilus is a lover of clear water. I have found it in Loch Lomond, and Dr. 

 Imhoff has obtained it, in abundance, in the middle of Lake Zug. It is common enough 



1 Notommata clavulata ; Ehr. 



" Miss Saunders, to whom I am indebted for the specimens, says : " It is curious I never before came 

 across this tube-dweller in the hundreds of pools I have searched." 



