24 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
understand, quietly divided himself in 
two, and as the house was big enough, no 
enlargement was required. How many 
stout puffy gentlemen must envy this pro- 
cess; how convenient to have two thin 
lively specimens of humanity made out of 
one too obese for locomotion. Man is, 
however, sometimes the victim of his 
superior organization, and no process of 
hssion " can make the lusty lean.* 
The bottles in which these creatures 
live, in happy ignorance that they are 
called by so crackjaw a name as Cothurnia 
imberbis, were described as Carapaces by 
Ehrenberg, but they bear no resemblance 
to the shell of a turtle or crab. They are 
thrown off by the animals who preserve 
no other connection with them than the 
attachment at the bottom. 
The Micrographic Dictionary describes 
the family Ophrydinaas corresponding to 
Vorticellina with a carapace. Stein places 
them with Vorticellids, etc., amongst his 
Peritricha, which are characterized by a 
spiral wreath of cilia round the mouth. 
Towards the end of the month a great 
number of black pear-shaped bodies 
(Stentor niger), visible to the naked eye, 
were conspicuous in some water from the 
Kentish Town ponds. Upon examination 
thev were found to be filled with granules 
that were red by reflected, and purple by 
transmitted light. Each one had a spiral 
wreath of cilia, with a mouth situated like 
those of the stentors, hereafter to be de- 
scribed, but none of them became station- 
ary, and in a few days they all disap- 
peared. Stein divides Ehrenberg's Stentor 
igneus from S. niger; the creature de- 
scribed seem to have agreed with Stein's 
igneus, which he describes as having 
blood-red, lilac, cinnabar, or brown-red 
pigment particles, and as much smaller 
than his S. niger. In the same water were 
specimens of that singular Eotifer, the 
Salpina, about 1—150" long, and furnished 
with a lorica, or carapace, resembling a 
three-sided glass box, closed below, and 
slightly open along the back. At the top 
of this box were four, and at the bottom 
three, points or horns, and the creature 
had one eye and a forked tail. Keeping 
him company was another little Rotifer, 
named after its appearance, Monocerca 
rattus, the ' One-tailed Eat. ' This little 
animal had green matter in its stomach, 
which was in constant commotion. I 
ought to have observed that the Salpina 
repeatedly thrust out its gizzard, and used 
it as an external mouth. In the annexed 
sketch the Salpina is seen in a position 
that displays the dorsal opening of the 
* Balbiani in his ' Reeherches sur les Pheno- 
menes Sexuels des Infusoires.' speaks of the 
Vorticellids as the only Infusoria dividing longi- 
tudinally. In other species such appearances 
arise from conjunction. 
carapace. Its three-cornered shape is 
only shown by a side view. 
Salpina redunca. 
Few living creatures deserve so well the 
appellation of "beautiful" as th.Q Flos- 
cularia ornata, or Beautiful Floscule, 
although to contemplate a motionless and 
uncolored portrait, one would imagine 
that it exhibited no graces of either color 
or form. Mr. Gosse has, however, done 
it justice, and the drawing in his " Tenby " 
is executed with that rare combination of 
scientific accuracy and artistic skill, for 
which the productions of his pencil are 
renowned. 
Probably the sketches in several works 
of authority representing the long cilia as 
short bristles, are merely^ copies from old 
drawings, from objects imj^erfectly seen 
under indifferent microscopes, and before 
the refinements of illumination were 
understood. Be this as it may, any reader 
will be fortunate if on an April, or any 
other morning, he or she effects the cap- 
ture of one of these exquisite objects, 
although the first impression may not 
equal previous expectations, as the deli- 
cacy of the organism is not disclosed by a 
mode of using the light which answers 
well enough for the common infusoria. 
When the Ploscules, or other tubicolar 
Eotifers are specially sought for, the best 
way is to proceed to a pond where slender- 
leaved water-plants grow, and to examine 
a few branches at a time in a phial of 
water with a pocket-lens. They are all 
large enough to be discerned, if present, 
in this manner, and as soon as one is 
found, others may be expected, either in 
the same or in adjacent parts of the pond, 
for they are gregarious in their habits. 
With many, however, the first finding of 
a Floscule will be an accident, as was the 
case last April, when a small piece of 
myriophyllum was placed in the live-box, 
and looked over to see what it might con- 
tain. The first glimpse revealed an egg- 
shaped object, of a brownish tint, stretch- 
ing itself upon a stalk, and showing some 
