S6 J. Shephard: 



Many more species have been seen, but the above can be re- 

 garded as the total number of certain identifications, and is the 

 work of some seven or eight observers. 



The habitat and occurrence of rotifers in AustraUa present 

 features differing from those of Europe and America. The 

 dryness of the country in the summer months obHterates nearly 

 all the pools in the early spring, so that the summer is the 

 quiescent period for rotifers. The so-called '* winter egg " 

 which in Europe carries the species over the cold season is 

 here a " resting egg " bridging over the warm weather. In 

 the district south of Melbourne, known to botanists as the 

 ** heath country," there is an area with a surface largely formed 

 of blown sand, in the hollows of which numbers of pools exist 

 in winter and disappear entirely every summer, yet they yield 

 a varied collection of these animals. Among the forms occurring 

 in this way are a few species of unique characteristics which 

 so far are unknown elsewhere. These all belong to the genus 

 Lacinularia. 



In the main part of Hudson and Gosse's " Rotifera " only one 

 species of this genus was mentioned — L. socialis, a world-wide 

 form — and in the supplement to the work there was a brief 

 •description of L. pedunctilata, an Australian animal. Since the 

 appearance of that work, eight more species of Lacinularia have 

 "been described, and of these seven, L. elliptica, L. elongata, L. 

 megalotrocha, L. pedunculata, L. racemovata, L. reticulata, and 

 L. striolata are from specimens found in Australia, and the re- 

 maining one, L. natans, Mr. Rousselet states, was found near 

 London once only. This species is, however, extremely plenti- 

 ful in Victoria, and has been found plentifully near Brisbane. 

 Of these species two, L. elliptica and L. elongata, were recorded 

 later from South Africa and France respectively. This still 

 leaves five species unknown outside Australia. All these eight 

 species of Lacinularia are colonial forms, and are therefore con- 

 spicuous and easily found, the smallest clusters being discover- 

 able by the naked eye, while two, L. pedunculata and L. striolata, 

 form clusters of thousands of individuals, and are objects as 

 readily discernible as a fallen wattle flower, and a third, L. reti- 

 culata, occurring as it does in colonies on the surface of the 

 mud, has been seen in masses over a square inch in area. 



Mr. Rousselet in his paper on the " Geographical Distribution 

 of the Rotifera " states that " it is not possible to speak of any 



