134 
Flosciilaria coronetta. 
r Monthly Microscopical 
L Journal, Sept.-^l, 1869. 
centre of the face, nearly to the projecting chin." And again,* 
'' The particles are hurled round the margin of the disc until they 
pass off in front through the great sinus between the larger petals. 
. . . We see them swiftly glide along the facial surface, following 
the irregularities of outhne with beautiful precision ; " while my ob- 
servations, on the contrary, show that the marginal cilia do not 
hurl the particles round the margin of the disc, but that they 
apjparently make a continuous procession in one and the same 
direction around all the four petals ; and the few particles that do 
follow the irregularities of the outline approach the sinus from 
ojpposite directions, on the one side of the animal in the same, and 
on the other side in the opposite direction to the procession of the 
marginal cilia, which could not happen if their passage were due to 
the direct action of such cilia; in fact, every particle that passes 
through the sinus is, during that passage, \vholly unappropriated 
by the animal. 
The true actions and functions of these and the accessory cilia 
about the trochal disc in effecting the prehension, selection, and ap- 
propriation of the particles respectively required for alimentary and 
architectural purposes is very distinct, and I hope at no distant 
period to arrange the deductions from these observations in a pre- 
sentable form. With this end in view I have been led to a con- 
sideration of somewhat similar points of unconformity in the genera 
Stephanoceros and Floscularia, these animals having been in some 
cases referred to as occupying the anomalous position of Rotifers 
without rotary organs, though entitled to the position they occupy 
in the class by virtue of their inheritance of the same type of man- 
ducatory apparatus. Then again, the ciliated coronal disc, with its 
radiating setae, has been frequently accepted and erroneously styled 
the rotary organ, in the face of visual evidence to the contrary ; 
the setse produce no continuous current, and beyond the sense of 
feeling and the function of retaining the captured prey wdthin the 
funnel, they appear to possess only a capacity for twitching and 
jerking the involved particles from point to point, yet notwithstand- 
ing, it is evident there frequently exists a distinct and persistent 
vortex in their funnels, entirely independent of the action of the setae, 
the necessary result of some motive power in the funnel, the true 
rotary organ in fact, which they certainly all possess ; and in animals 
of the lowest form in their class, with the manducatory apparatus in 
a state of deep degradation, we must expect to find subordinate 
organs at a proportionately low point, and of the existence of such 
a low type of rotary organ I was able, by dint of careful observation, 
vdth superior appliances, to satisfy myself both as to the form and 
position in Stejohanoceros, and subsequently much gratified to 
* ' Pop. Sci. Rev./ 1862. 
