Building Apparatus of M. ringens. By F. A. Bedwell. 219 
and again in the ‘ M. M. J.,’ vol. xiv. p. 267, when he speaks of 
“ conical ” pellets. In captivity and when hurried by the 
unnatural surroundings of a small glass receptacle, the animal 
makes imperfect pellets and deposits them half made, sometimes 
even throwing the pellet away in the bashful retreatings that it 
makes into its case, but when quite complete they are generally as 
drawn in the diagram, PI. CXCVII., B, and the advantage of such a 
shape over a spherical form in such a building is sufficiently obvious. 
There are two methods by which this ultimate and complete form 
is obtained, one the ordinary method, and the other an extra- 
ordinary method, and both are so exquisitely simple that it is 
impossible to regard them without great wonder and admiration. 
The process in either case consists of two parts, and we will take 
the ordinary process first. In the first part of this process the 
small particles from the side chins which trickle into the pellet 
organ by the two little chinks or clefts, one on one side of the 
main chin, and the other on the other, are by cilia kept rolling 
over and over in the pellet cup in the glutinous secretion, there 
exuded, and the motion is kept up around an axis, the angular 
attitude of which is constantly changing, just as a hoy makes a 
round ball of clay out of a rough mass by rolling it between the 
palms of his hands in every possible direction ; when this sphere of 
particles is sufficiently hard and large the second part of the process 
begins, and the sphere is then pushed forward into the mouth of the 
pellet organ (PI. CXCVII., B), and there it protrudes a little out 
of the organ, hut the motion now changes to a uniform revolving 
motion round an unalterable axis, that axis being perpendicular to 
the plane of the cup's mouth, and being coincident with the medial 
axis of the cup ; by this simple change the following results are 
arrived at : the part of the sphere which protrudes from the pellet 
organ receives no more accretions, but the part of the sphere which is 
inside the organ does, and these additions as affixed to the hind part 
of the sphere are by the revolving motion round one axis arranged in 
the form of a cylinder, just as a boy converts his hall of clay into 
a cylindrical form by continuous rolling round an invariable axis 
between the hands. 
But the same result is sometimes produced by another, which I 
have called an extraordinary method, and which is still more 
remarkable : it will be seen from Mr. Cubitt’s figures * that the 
pellet sometimes lies transversely in the pellet organ (see my 
Fig. 5). Now I have seen it constructed in that attitude as 
thus : alter the sphere is completely made the animal actually 
stops the supply over one of the side chins ; it then sets up the 
uniform revolving motion as before, but this time round a hori- 
zontal axis, which is exactly perpendicular to that which it 
* ‘ M. M. J.,’ vo!. iii. p. 210. 
