On »some South-African Phyllopoda. 25 



sudden bend of the tail, to start away with considerable 

 speed, and its capture with the ordinary dipping-tube is 

 therefore connected with no little difficulty. More frequently 

 the specimens were seen swimming about near the surface 

 of the water, never burying themselves in the bottom- 

 deposit or ascending the stem and branches of the aquatic 

 plants, as is the case with the Apus and Estheriæ. Their 

 food seemed exclusively to consist of small particles of 

 animal or vegetable matter, which, by the swinging of the 

 branchial legs, are whirled in between them and carried for- 

 ward to the mouth. Though several male and female speci- 

 mens occurred together in the aquaria, I never succeeded 

 in witnessing the copulative act, and I cannot therefore 

 state, in what manner the peculiarly transformed antennæ 

 of the male are used. It cannot, however, be doubted, that 

 they are prehensile organs, by the aid of which the female 

 is seized, and that the strong claws issuing- from the end 

 of the basal part may serve for getting a firm grasp of 

 her; but on the other hand, it seems equally difficult to 

 imagine what can be the function of the soft terminal part 

 with its likewise rather fragile chela, and to conceive the 

 signification of the peculiarly developed frontal appendages 

 in other male Branchipodids. The females several times 

 deposited their eggs, but no new generation was seen to 

 develope from these eggs, though the aquaria were kept for 

 observation far into the autumn. 



