310 MisceJlanecms. 



bears cilia ; but these are long and delicate, and their movement is 

 opposite in the two halves of the apparatus. By their means foreign 

 bodies which get into the channel between the two ciliated crests 

 are pushed gently along and conveyed to the mouth, being retained 

 in their position by the inferior range of cilia. 



The action of the whole apparatus is explained as foUows by M. 

 Claparede : — The superior range of cilia when in action produces 

 currents tangential to the vibratile organ and perpendicular to its 

 plane. These currents are closed and appear to be nearly of an 

 elliptical form ; particles involved in them pass repeatedly over the 

 same course, and if they are thus brought in contact with the ex- 

 tremities of the inferior cilia, which reach a little above the base of 

 the superior range, they pass into the channel above mentioned and 

 are pushed along in it towards the mouth. The author remarks 

 that the apparent movement of the inferior cilia is from the mouth ; 

 but this is illusory and due to the circumstance that the slow elevation 

 of each cilium preparatory to its stroke produces a greater effect upon 

 the eye than the more rapid stroke itself. This double row of cilia 

 in Melicerta and Lacinularia has been observed and described in this 

 country by Huxley and Williamson, and in Germany by Leydig ; but 

 its existence seems to have escaped the notice of subsequent ob- 

 servers. 



Professor Huxley has also observed this second row of cilia in 

 Philodina, a genus belonging to the Rotatoria Zygotrocha. M. Cla- 

 parede here describes and figures it in Rotifer injlatus (Duj.), in 

 which the inferior cilia are borne upon a crest which is oblique 

 relatively to the plane of the vibratile wheel ; in all other respects 

 the arrangement and action of these inferior cilia are the same as in 

 Melicerta. The same characters have been observed in Rotifer vul- 

 garis (Ehr.). 



M. Claparede appends to this paper a note confirming Mr. Gosse's 

 account of the mode in which Melicerta ringens builds up its tube, 

 and remarks that this does not appear to have attracted attention on 

 the continent. — Annales des Sciences Naturelles, serie 5, tome viii. 

 pp. 5-12. 



Habits of Volutes. By Dr. J. E. Gray, E.E.S. &c. 



Volutes are rarely collected with their animals, except when they 

 are accidentally thrown ashore after a storm. They have therefore 

 been said to be animals which lived in the depths of the sea. The 

 reason they are not found is that, like the Naticce, they bury them- 

 selves in the sand as soon as the water falls and the sand is left dry 

 by the tide ; they are only to be procured by digging for them, or 

 when the storm has been sufficient to disturb the sand and throw 

 them on the beach. Mr. Cutter informs me that he has walked for 

 miles along a sandy beach in Australia without finding a specimen ; 

 but on talking to a fisherman about the shells, he told him the sand 

 abounded with them ; and taking him back to the sand which he 

 had traversed, on digging up a spot on the sands which was drier 



