PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 
29 
observed by him. In doing so, he said he was induced to bring it 
before the Academy because it was, he believed, rarely met with in 
this country, and had not been previously here described. 
In its main characteristics, such as spiral carapace or case, five 
tentacle-like lobes armed with cilia, or, more properly, setae, eye-spots, 
jaws, stomach, &c.j it corresponds with the description given by Mr. 
C. Cubitt in his paper entitled " Observations on the Economy of 
Stephanoceros," in the ' Monthly Microscopical Journal,' vol. iii., 
1870, p. 242 ; but in addition to that very full sketch of this 
interesting object, there were some points of interest not there 
recorded. First was the great length of setse or bristles projecting 
from the ends of the tentacles (only to be seen by especial care in 
focalizing with the lens), these overlapping each other formed a net- 
work in which were entrapped Paramoecia of various sizes, as many as 
forty having been observed there at one time. And by virtue of these 
long setaB the animal's facility for procuring prey was greatly 
enhanced. 
These minute objects which served as food were by a spasmodic 
effort of the bristles gradually brought within the arms, and from 
there, with this continued spasmodic movement which has been 
described by Mr. Cubitt, were brought within the vortex induced by 
an arrangement of cilia around the mouth, which, unlike the setae on 
the tentacles, were, while the animal was feeding, kept in a whorl. 
The action of the setee on the lobes of the Stephanoceros is spas- 
modic ; it creates no vortex, and it is only by actual contact with these 
setae that floating particles are whipped within the area enclosed by 
the lobes, where, by the same whipping action, they are twitched from 
point to point, irregularly downwards, until they come within the 
range of a vortex, which is due not to any action of the setae, but to a 
range of minute cilia in the funnel, distinct from the foraging 
appliances. 
For two weeks the animal under observation fed voraciously. 
The last few days of this time granular layers were rapidly 
deposited on each side of the body just within the case, until the 
upper part of the carapace was distended with this accumulation. 
For twenty-four hours following this condition but little or no food 
passed into the digestive cavity ; any infusoria or other foreign sub- 
stance accidentally coming within the tentacles being immediately 
expelled by a sudden constriction of these organs at their base. 
It was evident from appearances that some change was about to 
take place. The animal, at first very sensitive, withdrawing into its 
cell on the slightest jar of the table on which the instrument was 
placed, now but seldom contracted its retractile muscle even though 
the zoophyte trough, in which it was examined, was quite violently 
tapped. 
On the sixteenth day of observation it was unavoidably left for a 
few hours ; on returning to it the tentacles, with the above-described 
accumulated dark mass, were found to have left the original case and 
were attached to a portion of the plant beneath the branch to which it 
(the original case) adhered. It now presented somewhat the appear- 
