RECREATIONS WITH THE MICROSCOPE 
47 
that great class or group of animals 
which still serves as a catchall for the 
zoologist. Here is placed everything 
which cannot be definitely associated 
elsewhere. We know that these ani- 
mals are many-celled and highly or- 
ganized, and offer as an excuse for 
their position among the worms their 
affinities with certain larval forms of 
the Trochophora type. In them the 
cilia are at first much developed, but 
in the end are restricted to certain lo- 
calities of the body, one of which ap- 
pears constant about the mouth. Henc’ 
the conclusion that our wheel animal- 
cules are exceedingly primitive forms 
with close relations to the progenitors 
of the phylum or genealogical tree of 
the Vermes (worms). 
The rotifers have a motile dental ap- 
paratus, a stomach of many cells, an 
intestine, salivary and renal glands, 
brain, nerves and red eyes. The mi- 
croscope reveals these organs in opera- 
tion. You seem to look through a win- 
dow at a delicate clockwork, so trans- 
parent is the skin of most of them. 
Manifold are their shapes. Free swim- 
mers have balancers and other attach- 
ments assisting them in floating and 
swimming. Most of the sessile specie^ 
construct protective casings of foreign 
matter (Melicerta), or exude jelly-like 
covering (Floscularia). Others are 
merely attached by a pedicel ending in 
a sucking disc. Melicerta ringens, as 
an example of a case-builder, possesses 
a so-called “pill-organ,” which is an 
open sac fringed with cilia, placed im- 
mediately below the mouth. This sac 
catches stray little grainlets and turns 
them into pills with the aid of mucus or 
slime. These are then carried out and 
deposited along the upper edge of the 
case, the entire case being built from 
such pellets. 
Rotifers can withstand drying up — 
desiccation — for some time, being then 
blown about with the dust and thus 
carried far and wide. When they 
again reach water they flourish as be- 
fore. This state of anabiosis (lifeless- 
ness) is a well-known phenomenon 
shown by many microorganism^ which 
after two hundred years of observation, 
still is not well explained. Rotifers can 
remain in this inert condition for 
months and years with impunity. Pos- 
sibly they exude a jelly-like substance 
which permits the retention of the 
modicum of moisture which carries the 
animals through this period of drought. 
Life is very elastic and adaptable to 
many contradictory phases, and even 
then may triumph over death. Perhaps 
even these minute “wheel bearers” may 
possess organs within their bodies 
whose significance is so far unknown to 
us. The illustration shows three species 
very much magnified. 
Through veils of feathery grasses 
The daisy faces nod, 
To give each one who passes, 
A greeting from the sod. 
— Emma Peirce. 
The Values of the Six-Footed 
Creatures. 
The six-footed creatures are, in many 
ways, better subjects for the beginning 
lessons in Nature Study than most 
other animals, or plants. And children 
like them, unless they are taught by 
some foolish grown-up that it is nice to 
shudder at anything that creeps. The 
longer the child can hold fast to his 
early liking for these denizens of out- 
of-doors (and some of us never lose it), 
the deeper his joyful interest in wood- 
land, field, and roadside rambles will 
be ; and it is an unfriendly and an un- 
kind act to mar this natural pleasure. — 
Edith M. Patch in “A Little Gateway 
to Science.” 
Dr. Nichols preached a fine sermon, 
laden with thought, on the influence of 
Nature on a mind diseased. He said 
that once an insane woman was re- 
stored to her right mind at the sight of 
Niagara. — Henry W. Longfellow. 
Catalogue of Photographic Lenses. 
The new catalogue of photographic 
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grade lenses is an unquestioned argu- 
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ciency. The specimens of scenic and 
scientific work are gems of clear-cut 
photography. The information is also 
extremely interesting. The catalogue 
makes one glad to be an owner and 
user of an Anastigmat. 
