ROTIFERA. 
623 
ROTIPEIU 
BY 
E, Perceval Wright, M.A,, M.D., F.L.S. 
Claparede, Ed. Miscellanees Zoologiques.— I. Sur la maniere 
dont certains Rotateurs introduisent la nourriture dans 
leiir bouche. — II. Sur le Balatro calvus, nov. gen. & sp., 
et les Rotateurs entierement depourvus de cils vibratiles. — 
III» Type d^un nouveau genre de Gasterotriches. Ann. Sc. 
Nat; 1867, viii. pp. 5~23, pis. 3 & 4. 
Davis, H. On two new species of the genus (Ecistes, Class 
Rotifera. Quart, Journ. Micr. Sc, xv. pp. 13-16, pi. I. 
Sj/nchceta haltica. Garner mentions that this Rotifer has the power of 
forming a very fine thread, hy which it attaches itself to foreign bodies. 
Brit. Assoc. Report, 1866, Trans, p. 73. 
Huxley and Williamson in England, and Ley dig in Germany, have ob- 
served the double row of cilia in Melicerta and Lacinularia. Huxley has also 
described it in Philodina. Olaparede (/. c.) describes it as it exists in Rotifer 
mJlaUis (Duj.), in which the inferior row of cilia is borne upon a crest 
situated obliquely to the plane of the vibratile wheel. The same fact has 
been observed, but with somewhat greater difficulty, in R. vulgaris (Ehrb.). 
In a footnote to the above paper Olaparede confirms Mr. Gosse’s ac- 
count of the manner in which Melicerta ringens builds up its tube, and 
remarks that though Mr. Gosse’s observations may have obtained universal 
credit in England, yet they would appear to have been very generally 
overlooked on the Continent. Thus Leydig, while giving a very formal 
contradiction to the hypothetical descriptions of Ehrenberg, does not once 
allude to the labours of Gosse. 
TapTirocampa, Gosse. Olaparede (1. c.) considers that this genus should be 
jplaced among the Rotifers (Oephalotricha), and not among the Gastrotricha ; 
it has none of the characters peculiar to this latter division, and it possesses 
a mastax, the buccal apparatus so characteristic of the Oephalotricha, and 
-completely absent in the Gastrotricha. 
• Olaparede (/. c.) refers to the investigations of Mecznikow (vide ‘ Zool. 
Record,’ 1866, p. 677), and adopts his order Gastrotricha, which will 
then contain the following genera : — Cheetonotus, Ehrb. ; Ichthydium, Ehrb. ; 
Ch<xtura, Mcznk. ; Cephalidium^ Mcznk. ; Dasydites, Gosse j and Turbanella. 
Schlz. Sacculus, Gosse, has a mastax and cannot come into this order. All 
,the hitherto described species of these genera have been found in fresh water. 
