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is really broken at the binder part, where the curved lines turn 
short upon themselves. . 
It is a very charming sight, especially to a tyro in microscopy, 
whose attention is riveted and his wonder excited by the spec- 
tacle, to behold one of these animals in full play under a good 
instrument. Probably, when he first sits down to his observa- 
tion, he discerns nothing but an opaque or semi-opaque tube 
standing up hke a tall chimney, a little widening upward ; for 
the timid little tenant, alarmed by the shaking of the table pro- 
duced by the observer’s movements in sitting down and pre- 
paring, is shrunken down out of sight into his snug castle. In 
a few moments, however, something peeps from the top ; per- 
haps it is a simple rounded mass of crystal flesh, as in cerato- 
phylli ; or the long antennal tube of cepludosiphon thrust out by 
jerks, and vigorously thrown to and fro; or the two incurving 
horns of ringens slowly protruding. 
Suppose it is the last-named species, the most attractive of 
all, perhaps I may say the most interesting of the entire class 
of Rotifera. As the rounded mass of translucent flesh still 
protrudes, crowned by its two horns like the spines of a rose, 
two other organs suddenly appear, stretching out from another 
part of the convexity, two long clear tubes, extending horizon- 
tally, one on each side, which are the feelers or antennas. Now 
a quivering is discerned in the interior ; and in a moment the 
extremity opens and unfolds into four wide rounded flat lobes, 
like the petals of a transparent flower. The plane of this 
flower-like disk is not horizontal, but more or less oblique, 
sometimes approaching to perpendicular, and the two petals 
which are the highest are considerably larger than the two that 
are lowest ; the former being the fore, the latter the hind pair. 
(See Plate XXVI., figs, a, b.) 
No sooner is this lovely flower in full blossom than you per- 
ceive the curious furniture of its margin. You cannot help 
perceiving it ; your eye is instantly drawn from every other 
part to gaze upon this wonderful sight. There is seen a 
set of black beads on the very edge, each divided by a narrow 
interspace from its fellows, winch are engaged, without a 
moment’s interruption, and with the most perfect regularity, in 
chasing each other all round the margin. Round and round 
they go, into the sinuosities, over the projections, with a steady 
majestic swiftness which is quite entrancing to behold. If you 
suppose the crown-wheel of a watch to be made of glass, and 
the teeth to be painted black, you would have in its movement 
an appearance somewhat like that of one of the simple disks of 
the genus, such as that of crystallinus ; but in this species the 
case is complicated by the wheel being four-petalled instead of 
circular. Again, however, you see that the disk itself does not 
