138 Transactions of the Society, 
seem, from the following account, that it is possible for such freedoms 
to be pushed too far. 
Mr. W. Dingwall, of Dundee, was on one occasion watching a 
male Floscule circling giddily round a female, and constantly annoy- 
ing her by swimming into her fully expanded, coronal cup. Again 
and again she darted back into her tube, only to find her troublesome 
wooer blocking up her cup and sadly interfering with, what to a 
Floscule, is the very serious business of eating; for these animals 
will often eat more than their own bulk in a few hours. 1 1 was clear, 
at last, that the lady would not tolerate this persistent interference 
with her dinner ; for when, after waiting rather a longer time than 
usual closed up in her tube — so as to give him every chance — she 
once more expanded, only to find him once more in his old position, 
she lost all patience, and effectually put an end to his absurdities, by 
giving one monstrous gulp, and swallowing her lover. It will not 
surprise you to hear that he did not agree with her, and that after a 
short time she gave up all hope of digesting her mate, and shot him 
out into the open again, along with the entire contents of her crop. 
He fell a shapeless, motionless lump ; the two score and ten minutes 
of a male rotiferon’s life cut short to five ; hut, strange to say, in a 
minute or two, first one or two cilia gave a flicker, then a dozen ; then 
its body began to unwrinkle and to plump up ; and at last the whole 
corona gave a gay whirl and the male shot off as vigorous as ever, 
hut no doubt thoroughly cured of his first attachment. 
I have taken Melicerta ringens as an example of what yet remains 
to be done, even with an animal which is as common in a ditch, as a 
fly is in a house ; but almost every other rotiferon would have 
done equally well ; for there is scarcely a single species, whose life- 
history has been thoroughly worked out. 
To me, natural history, in man}^ of its branches, seems to resemble 
a series of old, rich mines, that have been just scratched at by our 
remote ancestors, and then deserted. Our predecessors did their best 
with such feeble apparatus as they had ; it was not much, perhaps, 
hut it was wonderful that they did it all with no better appliances ; 
and it irks me to think that we, who are equipped in a way which 
they could not even dream of, should turn our backs on the treasures 
lying at our feet, and go off prospecting in new spots, contented too 
often with a poor result, merely because it is from a new quarter. 
Besides, the love of novelty is a force too valuable to be wasted on 
a mere hunt for new species in any one group of animals, especially 
unimportant ones. It should rather be used to make us acquainted 
with the more striking forms of many groups. Let us have no fear 
of the reproach of superficial knowledge ; every one’s knowledge is 
superficial about almost everything ; and even in the case of those few 
who have thoroughly mastered some one subject, their knowledge of 
that must have been superficial for a great portion of their time. 
Indeed, the taunt is absurd. I can imagine that a superficial know- 
