656 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
to keep the water sweet. Many generations of Rotifers lived and 
died in that bottle, as their silicious skeletons testified, the sedi- 
ment being full of them. 
Temperature has very little effect on Rotifera. We have had a 
bottle of water containing these creatures frozen solid, and on 
thawing them, they were as lively as ever. We 
have also placed a large-sized drop of water on 
a slip of glass, and held it over the flame of a 
lamp, long enough for the glass to be uncomforta- 
ble to the fingers, with the like result. 
appeared to be a little more active 
warm bath. 
Fig. 113. 
They only 
after their 
The old experiment of evaporating a- drop of —— 
. : Epistylis flavicans. 
water on a slide containing Rotifers we have also 
tried, and on again wetting the spot, have resuscitated some of 
them. We have had them the twenty-fifth to the thirtieth part 
of an inch in length; about the fiftieth part of an inch is the 
usual size. 
A little to the left of the Rotifer, attached to a piece of Con- 
ferva, is a beautiful cluster of bell-shaped animalcules, Vorticella 
ee campanularia. They are attached to 
= the plant by means of a stalk, which 
has a contractile muscle running from 
the base to the upper end: they have 
a ciliated mouth. Just watch that 
little cluster of crystal bells. They 
have by means of the muscle drawn 
back until they look like an irregular 
mass of gelatine. Now they slowly 
move out again, as if all were guided 
by the same will. Now they are at 
full stretch, with cilia revolving, fish- 
ing and feeding. Again, they are all 
retracted with a jerk. Some of them 
look as if they were double. Repro- 
ete ti E G : „se: it is 
Epistylis Aavicans, magnified, duction is going on in thes 
effected by fission. Bye-and-bye these 
will separate and detach themselves, and swim about till matured, 
when they attach themselves, to go through the same existence as 
their progenitors. (Fig. 113 represents a vorticellidan, Epis 
