The Presidenfs Address. By Dr. C. T. Hudson. 137 
a portion of the coronal disc chance to be torn away, its cilia will 
continue to beat for some time after its severance : so that there 
is good reason for believing that the ciliary action is beyond the 
animal’s control. 
It is possible, indeed, that Melieeria may continue to grow (as Mr. 
Hood says, that the Floscules appear to do) as long as it lives ; or it 
may adopt the plan of some species of (Ecistes, which, to prevent 
themselves from being hampered by their ever-growing tubes, quit 
their original station at the bottom of the tube, and attach them- 
selves to it above, creeping gradually upwards as the tube lengthens. 
At any rate it would be interesting and instructive to watch the 
growth of a Melicerta, and the building of its tube, from the animal’s 
birth to its death. An aquarium, in which Melicerta would live 
healthily and breed freely, could easily be contrived; and a little 
ingenuity would enable the observer to remove any selected in- 
dividual to a zoophyte trough, and back again, without injury; and 
his trouble perhaps would be further repaid by such a sight, as once 
delighted my eyes at Clifton ; where I picked from one of the tanks 
of the Zoological Gardens some Vallisneria, whose ribbon-like leaves 
were literally furred with the yellow-brown tubes of Melicerta. I 
coiled one of these round the wall of a deep cell, and thus brought 
into the field of view, at once, more than a hundred living Melicertse of 
all ages and sizes, and all with their wheels in vigorous action 
— a display never to be forgotten. 
Such a tank, so stocked and managed, would probably enable 
a patient and ingenious observer to decide several other points, about 
which we are at present in ignorance : to say whether the same 
individual always lays eggs of the same kind, or whether it may 
lay now female eggs, now male, now ephippial eggs ; and to 
say what determines the kind of egg that is to be laid ; whether it is 
the age of the individual, or the supply of food, or the temperature, 
or sexual intercourse that is the potent cause. It would, too, hardly 
be possible for the male to escape the observation of a naturalist, who 
possessed a tank, in which were living, hundreds of Melicerta; and 
the male is as yet almost unknown. 
Judge Bed well found in the tubes of the female, in the winter, 
a small rotiferon resembling the supposed male, that I had seen 
playing about M. iuhularia ; only the former had a forked foot, and 
sharp jaws, that were at times protruded beyond the coronal disc. Its 
frequent occurrence in the tubes in various stages of development, 
and the nonchalance with which the female suffered it to nibble at 
her ciliary wreath, inclined the observer to conclude that the animal 
was the long sought-for male. Unfortunately it was only observed 
when in motion, so that its internal structure was not made out ; and 
the matter therefore still rests in some doubt. 
No doubt it is a strong argument, that the female would suffer 
nothing but a male to take such liberties with her ; but it would 
