New Species of Floscularia, &c. By Dr. C. T. Huchon. C09 



skilfully fished by Mr. Bolton and Mr. Hood, why should not the 

 Welsh and Irish lakes, marsh ponds, and moorland pools yield 

 forms equally curious and beautiful under similar treatment ? 



Let any one reflect that during the hundred years from 1766 

 to 1866 there were only three known species of Floscules, and that 

 in the next twenty years no less than eleven very remarkable 

 species have been added to the older three, mainly through the 

 persistent researches of Mr. Bolton in England and Mr. Hood in 

 Scotland, and he will at onee admit that it is rather the lack of 

 skilled observers, than the poverty of Nature, which we have to 

 complain of. 



Floscularia mira n. sp. mihi. 



This is perhaps the most remarkable of all the strange creatures 

 that belong to the genus. It was discovered by Mr. W. G. Cocks. 



It is a small Rotiferon ; at least the only specimen that I have 

 seen was but 1/100 in from the tops of the knobbed lobes to the 

 extremity of the foot. It closely resembles F. ornata except in 

 two points, viz. its tube and its setae. The tube is much more like 

 the case of a Stephanoceros than that of a Floscule : but no great 

 stress should be laid on this, as the cases of the tube-maker often 

 differ a good deal from one another, even in the same species ; and 

 of this species, as I have already said, I have seen but one 

 specimen. 



The setae, however, are absolutely unique; no other Eotiferon that 

 I am acquainted with has anything resembling them. When seen 

 by transmitted light there is nothing remarkable about them, except 

 their great length and abundance ; but, with dark-field illumination, 

 they are at once seen to be all lengthening and contracting like the 

 fine processes of an Actinoplirys, only at a more rapid rate. 



The setae move quite independently of each other, not at all in 

 groups ; so that any score of them in view at once are in every 

 phase of extension and contraction : and tiny particles may be seen 

 to move along inside them as if carried by some current. 



When a contracted seta begins to extend in length, its tip is 

 often driven forward with a curious flourish, such as the end of an 

 empty elastic tube might give if a stream of water were suddenly 

 driven along it. 



Floscularia mutabilis n. sp. Bolton. Plate XII. figs. 1, 2, and 3. 



This swimming tube-maker was discovered by Mr. Bolton in 

 September 1884, and named, figured, and described by him in one 

 of his fly-leaves sent out with each specimen. It is about 1/65 

 in. long ; and, when quiet in its tube (fig. 1), looks as if it 



