Five New Floscules, c&e. By Dr. Hudson. 165 



trough, if carefully attended to, is from forty to forty-six days, but 

 of course it may live longer in its natural habitat. When old age 

 arrives it does not contract its lobes closely if alarmed, and it is 

 slow in expanding them or in contracting its peduncle. At last it 

 ceases either to close the lobes or contract the peduncle, its setae fall 

 off, the internal organs cease to move, and it dies with the lobes 

 fuUy expanded. 



In two hours after death it is surrounded by swarms of infusoria, 

 and in a few hours more these leave not a vestige of it, the Floscule 

 having in its turn been devoured by the very prey on which it used 

 to feed. 



I had the good fortune to witness the hatching of two males of 

 F. amhigua — they were produced as usual from smaller and 

 rounder eggs than those of the females. The digestive organs 

 and mastax were wanting, and the anterior portion of the body was 

 transparent, bearing a wreath of long vibratile cilia and two red 

 eye-spots ; the posterior portion contained the sperm-sac, with a 

 tube leading towards the foot. It is a most restless creature, so 

 that it is difficult to get a good observation of all its parts. 



F. longicaudata. (Plate IV. fig. 2.) 



F. longicaudata was discovered by Mr. Hood in a pool on Tent's 

 Muir in May 1881, and in Loch Eea in July and August of the 

 same year. Although a rather rare rotifer, it is more social than 

 F. amligua, forming small colonies of half-a-dozen individuals or 

 more. 



It differs also from F. amhigua in its choice of habitat, for it 

 prefers to perch itself on the exposed end of a leaf; whereas F. 

 ambigua forms its tube in the axils of the plant it is on, or on the 

 concave side of the leaf. The creature's chief peculiarity is the 

 very long non-retractile peduncle in which the foot ends. This 

 peduncle exists in all Floscules, but is usually not more than 

 l-15th or l-20th of the length of the foot ; in F. longicaudata, 

 however, the peduncle is often l-3rd of the length of the foot. It 

 is a thin transparent thread, and is frequently thrown into graceful 

 curves and coils. The lobes of the mouth-funnel are usually 

 more angular than those of any Floscule I am acquainted with ; 

 the specimen from which the figure was drawn showed this pecu- 

 liarity in a marked way. The dorsal lobe is as usual the largest ; and 

 the two ventral lobes are larger than the two side ones, which indeed 

 are at times quite insignificant, though their presence is always 

 indicated by the pencils of radiating setae. All the specimens 

 which Mr. Hood sent me had neater and more compact tubes than 

 those of other species ; but, as they also differed considerably from 

 each other, this may have been accidental. 



