178 WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 



in every ditch, is the Cyclops quadricornis. What 

 a long, hard name for such a small creature ! It is 

 certainly two hundred times longer than the animal 

 when seen with the unassisted eye, and means the 

 one-eyed water-flea with four horns. These horns 

 or feelers, you see, are all placed up near the head, 

 and are used while swimming, as well as to touch 

 things, as you do with your fingers. It has a 

 single bright red eye in the middle of the head, 

 and at the base of the pear-shaped body, near the 

 forked tail, are two egg sacks (for this is a mother 

 Cyclops) filled with eggs, which she carries with 

 her until they are hatched. The young do not 

 look like their mother. They have no tail ; only 

 joint segments at first ; and the feelers are placed 

 on the side of their square little bodies as legs. 



As to Cypris, looking like a tiny clam hardly 

 larger than a pin's head speeding through the 

 water until you have magnified it, and Daphnia, 

 the branched, horned water-flea, throwing up its 

 arms as if astonished at the situation in which it 

 is so suddenly placed, these are both near relatives 

 to Mrs. Cyclops. Although moving with a quick, 

 jerky motion, they are not insects, as their common 

 names would imply, but belong to the same class 

 of animals as the shrimps, lobsters and crabs. 



