64 E. KELLY MAXWELL ON 



years ; and many a delightful hour we spent over his notes of 

 wild flowers and birds observed since we arrived in France. It 

 was in one such hour we heard of a microscope given to him as 

 a boy, and of some wonderful creature that darted across the 

 iield of view with something whirligigging in front like an aero- 

 plane propeller. This was the beginning of many a talk of 

 rotifers, and one of the first results was a set of little outlines in his 

 notebook of the commoner forms, such as Melicerta, Limnias, 

 Stephanoceros, Floscularia, Philodina, Brachionus, Euchlanis, and 

 other well-marked varieties. After the sketches naturally the 

 next thing was to find the living specimens, so after fitting up 

 little cigarette tins with watch glasses, pocket magnifiers and bits 

 of mirror after the fashion of dissecting stands, we applied our- 

 ■selves to the quest. Our first rotifer was a bdelloid from a piece 

 of m.oss picked off the wall of the Citadel, near the North Gate. 

 The flat swampy fields just outside the low outer walls of the 

 town yielded us very soon Triarthra longiseta, Polyarthra 

 platyptera, Euchlanis and several small loricate forms such as 

 Salpina and Diglena. A big marshy field not far from the 

 ramparts, where we often saw curlew and other sea birds, gave us 

 our first Hydatina. This was the first time I had ever taken 

 this fine form. Always, however, I was longing to get one of the 

 big tube builders to show my tall sergeant, and I shall never 

 iorget the day we got our first one. We had gone for a walk to 

 the north of the town on the wide marshes of the river, and as 

 luck would have it we had no collecting bottle with us. We 

 came upon a number of low-lying gardens, separated by little 

 drains leading into one of the big marsh pools. I was so struck by 

 the likely-looking growth of Anacharis that we forthwith started 

 to hunt for a bottle. Strange to say, old bottles of any sort 

 seemed very absent on this particular day, and at last at a lonely 

 railway crossing we found the Frenchwoman on duty had a lot 

 of empty beer bottles. We persuaded her to part with one for 

 fourpence, and set off again to the pool, looking back on our way 

 to find her regarding us with a very puzzled, not to say comical, 

 expression. I suppose she had never found empty bottles so 

 much appreciated before ! Our zeal was rewarded handsomely, 

 however, when on turning out the contents into several shallow 

 dishes, later in the day, we found two specimens of Stephanoceros 

 and a fine big Brachionus urceolaris. All our finds were of course 



