12 
LIFE, IN ITS LOWER FORMS. 
white mncor, or mouldiness. Such a fragment placed in 
the “live-box” of the microscope will not fail to present 
many groups of one of the most attractive oi all the 
Infusoria, tho lovely genus Vorticella. (See Plate I. Fig. 1.) 
A little hell of glassy transparency is affixed by a sort of 
nipple to a slender filament or stem, eight or ten times its 
own length. The bell has a broad and thick rim or lip, 
within which, on the two opposite sides, are apparently two 
pairs of cilia,* which are sometimes withdrawn, sometimes 
protruded, and are vihrated with a rapid snatching motion 
(a). The result of this is very curious, for when any 
atom in the water is drawn near the bell-mouth, it is not 
driven away or drawn in, but is whirled round in a con- 
tinuous circle above either pair. This gyration may be 
frequently seen, even when the cilia are so fai withdrawn 
as to be invisible. 
Within tho glassy bell are seen many pellucid bodies, 
which have been supposed to be numerous stomachs; 
these are continually changing their sizes, forms, and 
relative positions; since they are ”ot defined vesicles, but 
simply excavations of the common mass of gelatinous 
flesh, produced by the escape of the food from the open 
extremity of the gullet. Besides these globules, there are 
scattered granules, a contractile bladder, and a band-like 
dark organ, which is called the nucleus, and which appears 
to possess the reproductive function. 
In general, the animal floats loosely through the water, 
the thread fully extended, but rarely so straight as not 
* The cilia are really placed in a complete circle around the bell-mouth ; and 
tho appearance above mentioned is merely an optical illusion, dependent on 
tbe relation of these parts of the circle to the eye, as viewed in perspective. 
