342 A Supposed New Acineta. 



or bottle in an intelligible way. He stands upon a footstalk, 

 or tailfoot, and jumps up and down as lie likes. The new crea- 

 tures were, on tlie contrary, suspended near the mouth, as 

 shown in Fig. 2. The cups of the Cothurnians, and of their 

 strange companions, were so transparent, so clean, and so thin 

 near the edges, that their rims wanted careful illumination to 

 make out, and I did not succeed in determining precisely how 

 the new creatures were moored. In favourable specimens I 

 saw two delicate lines, as in Fig. 2, which did not, with any 

 power or illumination, look like cords; but which I sup- 

 posed represented a very fine membrane going all round the 

 animal's body, and probably forming an inversion of the cup 

 rim. The animals were very sluggish; but occasionally the 

 group of tentacles would be retracted, though not perfectly. 

 In this state they were like a row of regular teeth. Slowly they 

 were protruded, generally not more than in Fig. 2, but in one 

 specimen, as fully as Fig. 3, which is drawn on a larger scale. 

 I looked in vain for positive organs in the little granular lump 

 of sarcode that formed the body. At first I thought I made out 

 a contractile vesicle ; but I could see no regular expansion and 

 contraction. The sarcode mass varied in details in different 

 individuals. In some, large granules and vacuoles were dis- 

 cernible; in others, both granules and vacuoles were small. 

 Most of them, in shape of body, resembled Figs. 2 and 3, and 

 did not occupy more of the cup. One, howevei', departed from 

 this rule in two particulars ; first, his body was large, and, at 

 the hinder part, was what might be taken for the remains of a 

 tailfoot : secondly, instead of a simple row of tentacles, he had 

 some perched on a boss of sarcode, as shown in Fig. 4, where 

 the dots represent three tentacles fore-shortened. 



Another case presented a still more curious peculiarity, 

 as shown in Figs. 5 and 6. There was nothing .to determine 

 what the two portions wero about. It could scarcely havo 

 been fission, because the larger and smaller portions were each 

 in a Beparate cup or bottle, tho upper one having no stalk. 

 Was it conjunction ? I do not know. I watched them for about 

 three hours, (lien checked the evaporation of the water drop 

 under the thin glass cover, by running a little wax from a 

 r< '. -In round the edges, and in the morning found the situation 

 unchanged, but tho animals apparently dead. In this case the 

 tentacles wiv in two rows, one apparently belonging to each 

 portion of the compound object. 



Small infusoria frequently bobbed against the tentacles, 

 ami sometimes large ones; but the creatures remained very 



Bluggish, and made no attempt to Capture ]>rry. Jarring the 



table, suddenly pressing the glass, produced no effect; nor did 

 Bhifting the cover glass, by moving it laterally with considerable 



